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Life it a struggle; a school; a t**t of fitnsst* 
No struggle, no school. No school, no fitness 

No fitness, no future— either in this world 

or "m any that may folio" 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. __ Copyright No. 

Shelf. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




iPkV^A 



LIFE 



Life is a struggle ; a school ; a test of fitness. 
No struggle, no school. No school, no fitness. 
No fitness, no future — either in this world 
or in any that may follow. 



BY 



JOHN RANKIN ROGERS. 




SAN FRANCISCO i 

THE WHITAKER & RAY COMPANY 

(Incorporated) 

X899 



%* 



OtUVERfO 



OCT 171899 



{&*., ,--^y- 






43775 

COPYRIGHT BY 

J. R. ROGERS 

1899 
TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 




SECOND CO**- 






AA 




The Individual Life ♦ 


Page 5 


The Kingdom of Hope . 


" 40 


The Law of Advance and the Gospel of 
Work 


« 70 


The Progress of Man ♦ 


" 103 



THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 



^HERE are, I think, but two ways in 
which we are able to form opinions, 
^ or to judge of new thoughts as they 
are presented to us for consideration. 
One, the usual, common and vulgar 
method, adopted, too, by many who con- 
sider themselves as educated men, consists 
in approving or disapproving a thought 
in accordance with an opinion previously 
formed of the character of the utterer. 
If we have been favorably impressed by 
a man, or the school to which he belongs, 
we commonly approve what he says. If 
we dislike him, or his school, we have 
no liking for his thoughts. This is the 
short and easy method in ordinary use. It 
is not confined to ignorant men. 



6 LIFE 

The other course consists in diligently 
and conscientiously comparing the new 
thought with our own. If, after this has 
been done, we come to the conclusion that 
the new is superior, that is, truer, we pro- 
ceed, without regard to consequences — and 
the consequences often involve great pres- 
ent calamity, — to substitute the new for the 
old. 

Those who do this, in greater or less de- 
gree, live The Individual Life. From their 
ranks have come all the poets, prophets, 
seers, discoverers, thinkers — all the truly 
great ones of earth ! These have possessed 
the courage of their convictions. These 
have dared to differ, and differing have sup- 
ported their opinions at the cost of what- 
ever opposed. These have known from the 
beginning that one man and God make a 
majority. From them the world has 
learned all it knows to-day. 

They have dared to stand alone! 

I have never ceased to admire the motto 
of the English coat of arms: " God and my 



LIFE 7 

Right." It expresses much. First: God, 
justice, absolute equity. Next: my right, 
my opinion, my individuality. Eight hun- 
dred years of forceful, successful advance 
may be read in that short phrase. I be- 
lieve no nation, no college class, can take 
that as a motto, endeavoring to live up to 
it, without turning out many who will 
make their mark in the world. Individ- 
uality is everything. To be without it is 
to be nothing. 

The only fly in this ointment of otherwise 
immeasurable value is this: One man's 
right has been wrongly made to include 
that of many others. But this is an in- 
fringement, a misstatement and a plain con- 
tradiction in terms. The assertion of indi- 
vidual right in matters religious was great 
Luther's contention. The declaration of 
individual right in matters political, each 
man for himself, was the remedy our 
fathers found, and I may add> as has been 
well stated by another, we shall find no 
other. The later declaration of Herbert 



8 LIFE 

Spencer makes all scientifically clear. This 
is, in substance: " Each has a right to do 
whatsoever he wills, provided in the doing 
he infringe not the equal right of every 
other." The dictum of Spencer, taken in 
connection with the motto of the English 
shield: " Dieu et mon Droit," forms a 
perfect code, political, moral and religious, 
for Spencer's statement is simply the 
Golden Rule differently stated. 

Among wild animals the individual mem- 
bers of a particular species are so much 
alike in appearance as to seem to the casual 
beholder precisely the same. But change 
the environment; place them under the 
control of man; subject them to his tute- 
lage; let all-healing and wonder-working 
time have its will, and at last in the barn 
yard of a later day appear the descendants 
of an original stock so changed in form 
and character as to bear' little resemblance 
to their progenitors of an earlier time. And 
not only will there have been a wonderful 
transformation differentiating the past from 



LIFE g 

the present, but, more wonderful still, 
diversity of form, of gifts and character, 
which in the foretime had no apparent 
existence, has now become marked and 
established. Individuality has been so 
educed by environment, has been so drawn 
forth by education, as to appear to have 
had here its creation. And yet to the orig- 
inal and individual life of each no jot or tittle 
has been added. The species was created 
in the long ago. It had no second birth. 
Man is not a Creator. No; environment 
has simply and slowly emphasized and 
magnified the precious germ of individual 
life and character with which each bird and 
beast, each plant and flower, has been en- 
dowed by an Almighty hand,j for among 
them all no two are found precisely and 
absolutely the same. For all her children 
and for every form of life kind Nature has 
a special and peculiar love and care, and 
each and all are precious in her sight. 

To the forest crab tree nothing has been 
added. And vet from it came forth the 



io LIFE 

glorious apple of to-day, brilliant in color, 
huge in size and of most pleasant taste. 
The crab has been educated. From it came 
forth all that now appears. Nor has there 
been created in the beautiful fruit of to-day 
a color or a quality which did not in some 
slight degree previously have place. By 
the process of education individuality in 
apples has been so enlarged and increased 
as to appear to have had here its origin. 

It is held as probable that the first animal 
to be domesticated by prehistoric man was 
his most faithful friend the dog. And be- 
cause he has been longer subjected to 
change in environment greater diversity 
among individuals has resulted than in the 
case of any other animal. Diversity, and 
differentiation, a marked and magnified in- 
dividualism, necessarily come from educa- 
tion, making more and still more important 
the character of each particular member of 
the species. 

As with dogs and apples, so with men. 
Nature is no respecter of persons. For all 



LIFE ii 

she has but one law. In a wild and unedu- 
cated state there is little difference to be 
noted between the members of a given 
tribe of either men or animals. Latent 
calents may be in hiding it is true. Prac- 
tically, and usually, they exist as mere 
possibilities which education may evolve 
into actualities. Or, which, without it, 
may continue unnumbered and unknown. 
The first evidence of education is the devel- 
opment of diversity, of individual and 
peculiar powers. Men are made more and 
more unlike, and with this unlikeness 
comes an increased and increasing force 
and power. Among savages one man may 
be as important to the welfare of the tribe 
as another, but when Moses led the chil- 
dren of Israel forth from the land of Egypt 
and out of the house of bondage this man 
was, himself, alone, more than half the 
power of the throng, for Moses was learned, 
we are told, in all the wisdom of the Egyp- 
tians. Indeed, the Hebrew leader in his 
own proper person came near being what 



12 LIFE 

we now vulgarly call, " the whole thing." 
Education, environment — for that which 
we call education is not all from books or 
the teaching of a professor — made the 
Moses of whom we read. Had he lacked 
this education, this environment, we, in 
these later days so far removed from his, 
had never known of him. It is true that his 
possession of these peculiar privileges of 
education and environment was dependent 
upon a higher power, but this is equally 
true to-day of you, my friend. Did you 
select the country into which you would be 
born? The race, the time, the family or the 
religion? It is indeed a most acute son 
who shall be able to select for himself a 
wise father and a beautiful mother. Were 
you able to do this? And these things, or 
the lack of them, make us what we are. 
Ourselves we do not see as we should. Of 
others we have a clearer view. Distance 
and the flight of time lend that perspective 
which places human action and human 
beings in their proper relation the one to 



LIFE 13 

the other. With this we are able to see 
more clearly things in a truer light. Too 
closely held one's own hand may hide the 
sun! Do you imagine that if perchance the 
Ego within your breast had been delivered 
for birth to some negro mother in darkest 
Africa that you who now sit here encircled 
by all that exalts and embellishes civilized 
life would then and in that case be other 
than another " panting negro at the line?" 
Do you tell me that Moses' life and charac- 
ter were the result of the direct interposi- 
tion of Divine Power? To this I reply: All 
that you have and are is, likewise, the gift 
of the Supreme. The Jews may select 
Abraham to be their father, if so be it please 
their fancy, and the materialists, the literal- 
ists may, as is their wont, fasten upon some 
arboreal ape as their progenitor, but you 
and I remember that Jesus, that great Rev- 
olutionist, taught all men everywhere to 
say: " Our Father, who art in Heaven." 
There's no monkey business about that. 
Christianity, which whether consciously 



H LIFE 

or unconsciously, colors every thought of 
our modern life, first taught men the ex- 
ceeding worth, the infinite value, of the 
human soul, of the individual life of man, 
and with this all right education coincides 
and agrees. All true advance is in this 
direction. Luther saw this most clearly. 
Carried to its logical conclusion his con- 
tention was an assertion of the right of 
private judgment as the highest tribunal 
known to man. And in this he was most 
eminently right. Thomas Carlyle has also 
said : " There is but one temple of the 
Living God; the human body." And in 
this, by a little questioning, we shall find 
that all men substantially agree. Ask the 
devotee of any faith, no matter how devoted 
he may be to his particular sect : Why do 
you believe thus and so? and he must 
answer, if he speak the truth, " Because I 
think it to be true." He has referred the 
matter to the highest court known to him ; 
the judgment of his own mind, the decision 
- of his higher and better self, the arbitra- 



LIFE 15 

ment of the God within. (The truth is each 
man is, and of right ought to be, his own 
Prophet, Priest and King^ 

There are those who would have us be- 
lieve that the future is to show a greater 
uniformity in the minds of men, that less 
of difference is to divide them, and that 
some day all are to occupy the same mental 
plane. No greater mistake than this could 
be made. All are, I believe, one day to 
have equal opportunity. But this equality 
of opportunity, which I hope and trust will 
surely come, will of itself produce un- 
bounded diversity of effort. Diversity of 
effort will, in turn, emphasize, increase and 
magnify those points of unlikeness pos- 
sessed by each. The result should be pat- 
ent to every thinking man. The power, 
the worth, the importance, of certain fav- 
ored individuals in those directions where 
each can be of greatest service to the race 
will thus be secured and perpetuated. " To 
him that hath shall be given and from him 
that hath not shall be taken away even that 



i6 LIFE 

which he hath." This is a hard saying. 
But it is true. Most true sayings bear 
hardly upon weakness and inefficiency. 
But weakness and inefficiency should not 
be made prominent, must not bear sway, 
must not rule or teach. For if they do then 
are they perpetuated. Strength, diversity, 
intellectual gifts, these are to rule the com- 
ing race and carry it onward in that grand 
advance man is making from the lowest to 
the highest places in the thought and esti- 
mation of the Creator. That man may ad- 
' vance, weakness and mediocrity must per- 
| ish. Men must be attracted and lured on- 
ward, and ever upward, by diversity of gifts 
and an increased power and importance in 
those whom they follow and pattern after. 
And all men follow after some one or some- 
what they admire. This is the rule and law 
of the race ; the future can bring no change. 
Mankind, it is seen, advances only by fol- 
lowing after and learning of those individ- 
uals that have excelled. In no other way 
is the ascent of humanity from lower to 



LIFE 17 

higher conditions secured. That the race 
may go forward, individuals must differ 
from the common herd, must excel. Su- 
periority must exist before it can be imi- 
tated and patterned after. In the whole 
course of the past, man has advanced only 
by following a leader. Thus, and thus 
only, can he go forward. Every cause 
must have its exemplar and advocate. 
Look at the long line of heroes, prophets, 
martyrs, scholars, poets, discoverers! These 
have been the schoolmasters of the race, 
and men have followed them because in 
some direction they differed, excelled and 
were superior as individuals. Thus we see 
that the loss and failure of weakness and 
mediocrity is the gain of the race. How- 
ever, in the long run no sparrow falls to the 
ground unwisely or uncared for by your 
Father. All have their appointed place and 
duty. 

That I speak the truth in this matter will 
be clear when we remember that the course 
of nature is always, in the long run, 



18 LIFE 

an advance. As the tiny tendril ever 
seeks the sun, so man, often as unthink- 
ing as the plant, turns, instinctively 
upward, toward the Infinite Light. The 
rule and law of the Universe finally 
will prevail. From the simple to the com- 
plex is the rule. From the homogenous to 
the heterogenous. The frog shows a 
change in structure from that of its original 
fish-like form. It has become an amphib- 
ian. It has advanced. Nature does not 
go backward. No amphibian becomes a 
fish. If forced to live the life of a fish the 
frog will die. So is it with men. Civiliza- 
tion may rot; may die; but civilized man 
J cannot return to the ignorant and peaceful 
| life of the savage. The complex cannot 
become again the simple or the heteroge- 
nous the homogenous. 

Anciently, we are told, men thought that 
the sun, having through the day finished his 
course from east to west, stole back in the 
darkness of the night in order that he 
might be in place to begin again, attended 



LIFE i 9 

by Aurora, the ascent of the eastern sky. 
I think we may safely conclude that when 
the sun does turn backward the wheels of 
time, then, and in that event, civilized man 
will descend from the complexity of the 
educated present to the simplicity and 
dull platitude of intellectual equality. It 
cannot be. Nature has her ways, her rules 
and laws. We do not make them. Our 
duty is to learn, not to quarrel with fate. 
And nature in us is bound fast in fate in 
this, that we are totally and absolutely un- 
able to estimate our standing in any direc- 
tion save by comparison with that of our 
fellows. We cannot see that we have ad- 
vanced, that we have increased in knowl- 
edge, wealth or power unless able to note 
our superiority in one direction or another 
over that of at least some portion of our 
kind. This necessitates, making absolutely 
certain, emulation, rivalry, the survival of 
the fittest. Diversity, complexity of effort 
and increasing power of the individual man 
is the sure and unfailing result. If, then, 



2o LIFE 

this is the course of nature — and no man 
can deny it— those who are seeking to 
differentiate themselves from the unthink- 
ing and the indifferent, from the careless 
and the ignorant, who are striving to excel 
their fellows, to surmount them in attain- 
ment, to place themselves in a position of 
superiority to them, are in this not merely 
following a law of selfishness and disregard 
of the welfare of others, but, rather are they 
in perhaps unconscious accord with the de- 
crees of nature, working out the advance- 
ment of the race to which they belong. By 
following our own course and our own ad- 
vancement we are, possibly unknown to 
ourselves, assisting, probably to the extent 
of our ability, in carrying onward the work 
of the world. The elevation of our own char- 
acter to a higher plane is not only our first 
duty but is also when properly interpreted 
the sum and substance of all duty. In the 
long run men are known by what they are. 
To teach others wisely, be the thing you 
would commend. Such teaching the world 



LIFE 



21 



cannot long withstand. Thus only can men 
be led. 

With the understanding I hav: here en- 
deavored to communicate, the saying of a 
great mind is most true, which is, that 
man's chief duty in life is " To secure an 
adequate and masterful expression of him- 
self." And by " himself," of course, is 
meant that higher, that other and inward 
self which we, each for ourselves alone, can 
know. 

The trend of things among us, however, 
is to-day leading men somewhat away from 
that vigorous American individuality which 
was the pride and glory of our earlier na- 
tional life. Now, we are more apt than 
formerly to depend upon what some other 
person may or may not do. ^Dependence 
upon others, upon society, upon govern- 
ment, is increasing. The young men in 
our educational institutions, as a result, are 
quite generally looking forward to the time 
when they may enter the service of the Gov- 
ernment, of some corporation, obtain a 



22 LIFE 

"position," or, at least, have their names 
placed upon somebody's payroll. In a 
word they are, to a greater or less extent, 
becoming dependent and are in danger of 
losing that independent individuality from 
which has arisen in the past all of value in 
our distinctive American character. Our 
young men are, in this matter becoming 
more like the youth in foreign lands. This 
is to be avoided, and must be remedied. 

Every age has a prevailing and distin- 
guishing form of thought running through 
its mental deliverances ; a keynote to which 
everything in the world of mind is referred 
and with which it must agree. Looking 
backward along the course of time we can 
see this in the past. The classical age, as 
seen in ancient Greece, had its keynote. 
This seems to have been delight in mere 
existence, the worship of beauty, of sculp- 
ture, painting, architecture, the human 
form divine. This is seen in the life of the 
people. It colored all their thoughts. At 
the time no man doubted the rightfulness 



LIFE 23 

of the then prevalent view of things. Now 
we are beginning to see that this repre- 
sented only a part of the truth. 

The medieval age we can now see had its 
keynote, too, — it was religion, and other 
worldliness. The results are before us 
spread upon the pages of history. That 
day and its doings are not to be imitated 
by us. That were impossible. And it is 
well that it is so. Those were the dark 
ages. When man makes of himself a worm 
of the dust he must not quarrel with the fate 
of worms, w r hich is to be trodden under 
foot. 

That the present age has its keynote 
there can be no question, though actors 
upon the stage of to-day may not be quali- 
fied to clearly set it forth. A brilliant writer 
tells us that this age differs from all that 
have preceded it in that we appear to have 
no conservatives, none who wish to pre- 
serve the present as it is. All wish for 
change — of some kind. Pessimism, uni- 
versal discontent, is, he appears to think, 



24. LIFE 

the keynote of the present age, and he has 
much to offer in support of his contention. 
If it be true that discontent is universal we 
may be certain that this mental cause will 
be quite sufficient to produce a change — 
of some kind. When all wish for change it 
will be certain to come and, I may remark, 
it will be likely not altogether to please 
anybody when it does come. While it is 
certainly impossible for us who are con- 
cerned in the life of to-day to accurately 
measure the collective thought of our own 
age, certain parts and portions, certain ten- 
dencies of the time, may quite readily be 
seen. Among these one appears most pro- 
nounced and marked. It is now an almost 
universal habit among men to enlarge upon 
and make much of the power of concerted 
effort. The co-operation of a sufficient 
number of men is supposed to be alone able 
to produce any desired result. The power 
of the majority and its right to settle a 
question of morals is scarcely questioned, 
while organized society is made to stand 



LIFE 25 

in the place of right, of God himself. What 
the majority of men are thinking we think; 
what they do we strive to imitate. The vast 
power of masses of men working to a de- 
sired end in industrial affairs and the won- 
derful results thus achieved in our material 
civilization have turned our heads. We 
have jumped to an unwarranted conclusion. 
We have foolishly supposed that the laws of 
matter are applicable to mind! Thus we 
are led to depend upon others for what we 
should do for ourselves. Individuality is 
destroyed. Mental weakness and social 
tyranny follow as a matter of course. This 
is a keynote to which much of our life is 
now attuned. " Man " has become, in our 
thought, a mere noun of multitude, thus 
obscuring in some degree the infinite value 
and the eternal regnancy of the individual 
soul! The unit of value and the starting 
point in all mental comprehension is the in- 
dwelling, individual soul of man! Men 
are not valued because they do not differ 
the one from the other. This is said to be 



26 LIFE 

a point of worth in chickens. These must 
be true to feather. They must conform. 
But chickens are sold by the dozen. And 
rightly, too, for one chicken counts for very 
little in any market. Only the noncon- 
formist was ever truly great. And only the 
great are worthy to be followed by us. Even 
though it never be reached, the aim, the 
model, must be high. Shakespere is valued 
not because he was like other men but be- 
cause he was not. It is not his likeness but 
his unlikeness to those by whom he was 
surrounded that made him of value to the 
race — or to himself. Shakespere lived the 
individual life! He looked within. There, 
within the confines of his own soul, resided 
his power. 

A late writer, extensively read, has un- 
dertaken to show us the solution of a mys- 
tery. He holds that every man possesses a 
dual consciousness, an objective and a sub- 
jective mind. The usual, common and 
ordinary thought of man is objective. The 
unusual, the uncommon, the recondite, the 



LIFE 27 

occult, the ghostly, belongs to the sub- 
jective mind which lies half concealed from 
its possessor, holding yet within its grasp 
secret treasures, which under favorable 
conditions are sometimes suddenly revealed 
to the consternation of all beholders. The 
subjective mind never forgets. Whatever 
has been once spoken of in its hearing is 
forever held and may thus upon occasion 
be drawn upon. Shakespere, this author 
tells us, owes his power to the fact that with 
him the objective and subjective minds 
were in full and complete accord; the or- 
dinary, every day sense of the man holding 
a perfect mastery over the subjective treas- 
ures of his mind. All that he had ever 
known, heard or seen, in this, or a previous 
world, was at the command of this other- 
wise quite ordinary player and maker of 
rhymes. 

For myself I must confess that this given 
as a reason for the vast superiority of one 
mind over another is unsatisfactory. It is 
an explanation which does not explain. 



28 LIFE 

But there is another view of this matter 
which to me appears greater, grander and 
more nearly in accord with our apprehen- 
sion of truth. Indeed, I think I may say 
that this later presentation of opinion is in 
line with the better thought of the age. 
The trend of opinion among cultivated men 
clearly favoring, in greater or less degree, 
the new thought. I will endeavor to 
state it. 

Throughout the vast universe there is 
but one Intelligence which to a greater or 
less degree permeates all matter. Each and 
every manifestation of mind is an offshoot 
from the Divine. Human intelligences are 
so many sparks from the Infinite Light. 
The mind of man is capable of being 
brought into correspondence with the great 
Source of all knowledge. And thus, under 
favorable conditions, the light of a Supreme 
Intelligence shines, faintly or strongly, into 
the comprehension of those whom Nature 
has selected as her favorites. These the 
world hails as possessed of genius. Blinded 



LIFE 2 9 

with the light received in one direction, 
however, much obliquity of vision in others 
is often manifested by the favored ones. 
Thus, genius to madness is near allied, and 
the great ones of earth often show surpris- 
ing weakness in one direction while attract- 
ing the acclaim of the world for marvelous 
strength in another. But the ability to rely 
upon unseen forces comes unsought and by 
favor. To some it is given, to others de- 
nied. But let every man be himself. This 
first of all. For so will he follow the course 
marked out for him by the forces which 
rule over fate. 

Thus I have attempted to sum up the 
new, and it may be the revolutionary, 
thought of our time. Most will judge of it 
by reference to preconceived notions of 
men and schools. Those who live The In- 
dividual Life will ask themselves simply — 
"Is it true?" 

He who would advance must learn to 
think. And he must use his own mind; for 
if we are to have independent and self-gov- 



3 o LIFE 

erning minds we must all think and decide 
for ourselves each and every matter pre- 
sented to us for decision. Every man 
worthy the name of man must be his own 
man and not the mere weak copy of an- 
other. Thought, to be valuable, must con- 
centrate in the mind of the thinker and to 
achieve the best results he must be much 
alone. He must appeal to his own better 
self. If constantly surrounded by his fel- 
lows the influences coming from them pre- 
vent that concentration of mind necessary 
to the best thought. The student at col- 
lege, despite his surroundings, is much 
alone; his study demands it. But the con- 
ditions and surroundings of the student are 
not possible to the great plain people, nor 
is it well that they should be. There is a 
better school — the school of nature — which 
may be opened to all, if men can but use it 
aright. Go talk to the shy and silent man 
who has spent his life as a hunter, far from 
the haunts of men. Though he cannot read 
a word of your written language and speaks 



LIFE 31 

with stumbling hesitation he has rich gems 
of thought, which, when you have compre- 
hended them, as you may not at first, will 
amaze and delight you. And yet, naturally 
his mind was of a low order, and what he 
has now was forced upon him by the very 
awe and magnificence of the processes of 
nature by which he has been surrounded. 
And in the untutored savage, unspoiled by 
so-called civilization and uncorrupted by 
false knowledge, you shall find the same. 

Go, then, from these men of wisdom, 
who yet may be called ignorant, to those 
who are not ignorant, and who still have 
no wisdom. You know where to find them. 
The camp, the mart and the factory are full 
of them. Seeing they see not and hearing 
they hear not. Their eyes are holden by the 
influences that come unbidden from their 
fellows; from sight of the sins and follies, 
which animal-like they are forced to imi- 
tate, and their ears are deafened by the ba- 
bel of evil communications which corrupt 
good manners and minds. Up to the years 



32 LIFE 

of discretion — if they ever come — we learn 
evil readily and good but hardly. Such is 
the fatal constitution of the human mind 
and so is destiny fixed. One boy, of him- 
self, may do much of good; a dozen and the 
devil is to pay. And men are but children 
of a larger growth. Men are ashamed in 
the crowd to utter their higher thoughts, 
while folly has eager currency. All this 
has its effect upon the formation of charac- 
ter. No man in the rabble escapes its 
power while he remains in it. Let any man 
be one of a company and he must adopt the 
current thought of the company ; otherwise 
he is jeered into silence. Most will con- 
form; a few, a very few, may not. And be- 
cause of the fact that in a mixed company 
high thought is not current and folly is, the 
multitude tread the broad road which leads 
downward. Downward to animalism. Go 
among the workmen of the cities in time of 
prosperity. Many receive high wages; the 
flower of civilization is theirs for the pluck- 
ing. Libraries, lectures, art galleries, the 



LIFE 33 

treasuries of the world are at hand. 
But they heed them not. A few, a very 
few, may, but they form only the excep- 
tion that proves the rule. A few save 
money, taking the advice of the wealth 
getter, that they, too, may become wealth 
holders and extortioners in their turn. 
They are no better than the other fools who 
follow only present pleasure. These wait 
for the future pleasure of extorting from 
their fellows. But find the majority. You 
will not need to seek them far. After work 
and supper, the street, the saloon and the 
brothel, the gaming table, cards, alcohol 
and tobacco. Who needs to tell the story; 
do we not all know it? And the crowd of 
to-day is but a repetition of the past. Man's 
nature is ever the same. The mob in the 
"marble" city of Rome, surrounded by 
beautiful architecture, sculpture, and the 
intellectual treats of the Forum, cried only 
for "bread and games;" something to eat 
and to amuse. And they were not ignorant, 
for the time. Far from it. But, that elder 



34- LIFE 

day, when to be a Roman was greater than 
a king, had departed. They had become "a 
community." They were dependent. In- 
dividuality was lost. They were unable to 
live the individual life, from which alone 
can come forth strength of mind and char- 
acter. They theorized upon such proposi- 
tions as "all for each and each for all," and 
the man who thinks the theorizers of that 
day were anywise inferior to those of to-day 
knows nothing of man and his history. 

The proudest, the freest and the truest 
Roman days were the early days when each 
family possessed its little farm. In the soli- 
tude of a country life men become self- 
reliant, free! Once upon a time the Vols- 
cians threatened the home owners of Rome. 
Cincinnatus, the general, being sent for, 
the messenger found him plowing his field. 
Summoned to the supreme dictatorship, in 
a memorable campaign of sixteen days he 
had beaten the enemy and retired to his 
field and his plow. News of the battle of 
Lexington reaching Putnam, he left his 



LIFE 35 

team yoked to the plow and hastened to the 
defense of free institutions. These were 
men. And they were the product of condi- 
tions; and these are, in course, freedom, 
solitude, self-reliance, courage, character. 
Of these freedom is first. The condition 
precedent to all ethical action is the free- 
dom of the actor. 

There is a word dearer than even mother, 
home or heaven. VJt is Liberty! The word 
denotes a condition. This condition is the 
desire of the heart of man, for in it alone 
true self-hood is possible^ How then may 
man obtain and keep it? l answer: By the 
formation within himself of an invincible 
determination. Help does not come from 
without, but from within. " The Kingdom 
of Heaven is within you." And so is the 
Kingdom of power. 

He who would be free himself must 
strike the blow. And freedom is the end 
and aim of all man's struggles upon this 
earth. Every just contention of man, since 
the world be^an, has had freedom as its 



36 LIFE 

object. Freedom of the individual. We 
are to know the truth, and the truth shall 
make us free. This is the end. This is 
what we are bidden to work, to strive, to 
agonize, to obtain. Freedom from igno- 
rance makes the wise man, the educated 
man. Freedom from poverty the truly 
rich man; from vice and evil thoughts the 
good man. Indeed the constant warfare of 
the virtuous is waged for the purpose of 
freeing himself from the sin that doth so 
easily beset him. 

Stepping, for a moment into the domain 
of politics, of economics, we see that the 
evil is still the same. The end here to be 
sought is freedom; freedom from the never- 
ending exactions, the speciously proposed 
and insidiuously argued schemes of those 
who would make merchandise of the toil 
and tears, the flesh and blood of poor, igno- 
rant, deluded, long-suffering humanity. 

My friends there is in life but one battle 
to be fought; but one just w r arfare. Liberty 
is its object. The liberty cf the individual. 



LIFE 37 

The spirit of this never-ending struggle has 
animated man from the beginning and will 
to the end. From the time when in the 
darkling mists of antiquity he first meets 
our gaze to that far day when He that rules 
the world shall say : " It is enough !" Then 
man shall be free! Then the morning stars 
shall sing together, and amid the silver 
chiming of the spheres all the sons of God 
shout for joy. 

Until that time, duty calls us in our sev- 
eral fields to the fray. There is no release 
in this war. Cowards and laggards may cry 
retreat; but for us upon whom has come 
the weight of mental responsibility, of com- 
prehension of duty, there is, there can be, 
no thought of release. The battle is yet on; 
the sounds of the fray, the neighing of 
horses and the shouting of men come 
faintly to our ears. Once more then dear 
friends into the breach. 

In all the affairs of life, its successes and 
its failures, its joys and its sorrows, we have 
upon which we may at all times rely only 



38 LIFE 

ourselves and the God within. All else in 
time of trial may leave and fcrsake us; and 
if the trial be severe enough surely will do 
so. But these two remain. If we are true; 
if we are sincere, even though partly 
in the wrong, we are certain of ultimate 
victory. 

We are then to depend upon ourselves! 
\ Self-reliance is the greatest virtue; for he 
who devoutly relies upon himself has in 
this done all he can to rely upon God. 

We all remember the story of Hernando 
Cortez. Young, able, brilliant, resourceful; 
cruel, to be sure, but not more so than 
others of his time and race. Inspired by the 
thought that he was to conquer a world 
for Spain and the cross, with a mere hand- 
ful of men he is set dow T n upon the shores 
of Mexico. In front of him millions of men, 
a nation to oppose. But no thought of 
retreat or coward ease inspires his intrepid 
soul. With true genius, an innate mastery 
of men, he makes their release impossible. 
He burns his ships upon the shores of the 



LIFE 39 

impassable sea! Henceforth it is victory 
or death! All other resource than their 
own good right arms has now vanished in 
the burning and gone up in smoke. They 
are forced to depend alone upon them- 
selves ! We know the result. 

We, too, stand upon the borders of an un- 
known future. A world is before us. Fresh 
and fair it is but filled with pitfalls and lurk- 
ing foes. There is no retreat possible. We 
too must conquer or be conquered. 

He who would win fame, and dying, as 
die he must, leave a name that shall prove 
an inspiration and a benediction to all who 
shall come after him, let him live The In- 
dividual Life; let him grasp his sword with 
firmer hold and strike, as did our ancestors 
in centuries that are past; for " God and 
my Right." 




THE KINGDOM OF HOPE. 



fHE wise old Greek told us, now many 
centuries ago, that the summing up 
^ J of all his teaching was this: " Man 
know thyself." To this we of a later day 
can add but little. For, if one do 
thoroughly know himself our experience 
with men will show us that having this 
knowledge he is a remakable man who 
has in this mastered the saving part of 
all that is to be known. Evidently the 
workman must first know his tools. If 
he do not then he is no workman, and 
only a pretender whom the first trial of 
skill shall dishonor. And sooner or later 
the trial comes to all. Every carpenter is 
asked, some day, to show his work, his skill 
and the deftness of his hand. He cannot aj- 



LIFE 41 

ways pretend. The time will come when 
he must use the implements of his trade. 
If then it be seen that he has not long be- 
fore most thoroughly known and mastered 
the thing he is called upon to handle deri- 
sion is written upon the face of every be- 
holder, and when next he speaks of his craft 
the tongue of scorn is ready in the cheek 
of his hearer. Doubtless the dray horse's 
stubby colt scampering in the fields may 
think himself a match in fleetness for any 
racer minded to enter the lists against him, 
for so it would appear. One trial will, how- 
ever, suffice; his thick stumpy legs are not 
made for speed. He does not know him- 
self. Men, too, often essay that for which 
they have no fitness and when as a result 
brought to shame are wont inwardly to 
mourn the absence of that impossible power 
which might give us leave to see ourselves 
as others see us. But this, were it possible, 
is not what is really needed. One must 
know himself for what he is, not as other 
men behold him; for the beholder has ever 



42 LIFE 

a jealous eye and sees a possible competitor 
in every performance of man. If other 
men's estimate of ourselves were all re- 
quired one might select a mentor and to 
him and his decision resign his darling 
hope! But this were the death of all 
progress and all advance. Who could have 
foreseen the greatness of Lincoln and prop- 
erly advised the boy struggling with un- 
toward influences? Of his ridiculous fail- 
ures, his loutish behavior and vulgar 
stories, who, having within him the instinct 
of culture and the mind of a gentleman, 
could in Lincoln's salad days have per- 
ceived the beginnings of an emancipator 
and a statesman? Had he then seen him- 
self as others saw him the noble rage of 
that grand spirit would have been forever 
repressed and the genial current of his soul 
frozen by the icy stare of an unsympathetic 
world. Thank God Lincoln saw himself as 
others did not. Within his heart blossomed 
the flowers that grow only when called into 
being by the genial sun of the Kingdom of 



LIFE 



43 



Hope. Lincoln hoped great things for 
himself. This, and this only, made the 
emancipator a possibility. A great hope of 
future preferment possessed him; lifted him 
above the vacuous animalism of the people 
by whom he was surrounded and of whom 
he was begot. He knew himself far better 
than did the others who saw him in the days 
of his early, or indeed his later, struggles. 
Let no man despair because of the preju- 
diced frown of his neighbor. If he have 
within the witness of his own spirit let him 
believe in himself and live. For if he accept 
the judgment of those who enter into com- 
petition with him he is condemned already. 
They will damn him with faint praise or, 
perchance, if more honest, give him the 
coup de grace at once and forever. No man 
of mark ever yet accepted as final the judg- 
ment of other men regarding himself. Of 
some completed work of his he may and 
often will do well to heed the opinion of the 
world, but in himself he will keep his faith to 
the end, sure that somehow, somewhere, the 



U LIFE 

brightest visions of his youth will yet come 
true. Men of note we are all able to see 
lived in the Kingdom of Hope. And be- 
cause they did inhabit it and were there re- 
ceived as citizens they became remarkable. 
The very air of that land is inspiring. And 
we all are privileged to follow them at a 
distance. Indeed great men are ensamples 
unto us, sent for our instruction. But if 
one attempt to follow let him be sure of 
himself. This first of all. Let him not ac- 
cept the honeyed words of friends and rela- 
tives who may possibly regard him as very 
near perfection already. No loyal wife or 
doting mother can be trusted here. We 
must know ourselves, as we are. 

Deep down in the very constitution of all 
animal life lie three instincts or desires. To 
preserve his life, to better his condition and 
to propagate his kind make up the life of 
man as well as that of all other animals. 
And upon these fleshly instincts, too, are 
builded the highest hopes of man's mental 
existence. One of these, common to all 



LIFE 45 

animals, is the desire to better our condi- 
tion, to acquire somewhat which shall in- 
nure to our advantage. Throw bones to 
your dogs and each will desire to possess 
himself of the largest and the best. Cattle 
in the yard will fight for the warmest corner 
and the best place to obtain their food. 
Men, too, do the same. From highest to 
lowest the struggle for advantage is ever 
on. From the learned man struggling to 
obtain his degree, to the poor devil who 
fights with his fellows for the coin thrown 
to them in the snow, all are forced by a 
primal law of being to seek for betterment. 
The dog that will not strive for his master's 
favor is no dog at all. The bullock that 
does not horn his fellow from the food — if 
he can — will never lay on fat and therefore 
does not serve the purpose of his existence. 
The man who does not struggle to acquire 
that which might help him on his way fails 
in his life, has indeed lest the true sense of 
things and resigned himself — having first 
taken leave of hope — to an untoward end 



4.6 LIFE 

and a desperate fate. For every man who 
hopes, and has thereby become an inhabit- 
ant of the Kingdom, is ever ready, as a 
good soldier, to do battle in its defense. 
And this animal desire for betterment, al- 
though from it comes the reign of tooth 
and claw, of avarice and greed, is yet the 
breeding ground and starting point of all 
improvement. It is the filthy mud, the 
slimy ooze from whence springs the pure 
white lily of hope. We struggle to obtain, 
we live to acquire. And why? Why in- 
deed but for the fact that we have hope in 
the future ; that somehow, somewhere ; how 
we cannot say; where we do not know, 
that for which we strive shall aid us, shall 
make us wiser, better, stronger, wealthier 
or more powerful. Nor while life and rea- 
son last can we escape the absolute mastery 
of this controlling principle of our nature. 
But while not able to escape it men still are 
able to say how their conduct shall be 
affected by this desire, and upon what plane 
they will act; whether upon the lower of 



LIFE {J 

mere contention and greed, or the higher 
of emulation and rivalry in that which is 
good. 

As sane men have never yet escaped, nor 
desired to escape, the hope of betterment of 
condition, so, in the future as in the past 
the normal man must obey. In some direc- 
tion he will strive for that which to him has 
greatest value and brings most of hope. 

There are those who would have us be- 
lieve that some day man will outgrow and 
outlive this primitive and fundamental de- 
sire, this constituent part of his nature en- 
tering into the very warp and woof of his 
being, extending from his first desire as an 
infant to reach his mother's breast on and 
on and up until it embraces that hope not 
made with hands which enters into the 
supremest mental comprehension of the 
sage and the saint. In its cruder and more 
material beginnings this basic instinct of 
man is ofttimes unlovely and repulsive, 
and yet even here it is a vital necessity of 
existence. But for this instinctive impulse 



4-8 LIFE 

the infant would not desire and could not 
appropriate it's mother's milk; the child 
would not seek to acquire; to know; and 
the man, if indeed it were possible for man 
to possess or to prolong an existence, hav- 
ing no desire to go forward, would forever 
remain a savage and brute. No; man can 
never still the promptings of the Infinite 
Soul within for larger liberty and greater 
light. And it is well that he cannot, for this 
common instinct is the motive power be- 
hind all advance from the atom to the angel. 
And this desire, spite of the groveling char- 
acter of an animal existence, in obedience 
to a law of the Creator implanted in the 
very heart of man, is forcing the race up- 
ward and onward in its journey toward its 
final and glorious destiny. Hope of Im- 
provement! Desire to Advance! This will 
never come to an end, either in this world 
or in any that may follow. It is a law of 
nature, and of God. 

Thus, necessarily, the life we lead be- 
comes a struggle, a fight we cannot refuse. 



LIFE 49 

And this, being a rule of our lives and a 
law of nature, is in harmony with all other 
rules and laws of nature. In every depart- 
ment motion is the law of life; when motion 
ceases life is at an end. Stagnation means 
decay and death. Morally and mentally, 
too, the moment we cease to advance, that 
moment we begin to recede, to lose what- 
ever has been previously gained, to fall 
back in the struggle. The stream of time 
must be constantly breasted with resolute 
stroke. If but for a moment we cease our 
struggle with the tide of things, instantly 
we are carried down the river, mere drift 
upon the current. 

My figure of the stream does not fully 
express the truth, for in spite of our re- 
luctance to admit it, the struggle for the 
realization of our hopes must be mainly 
waged with our fellows for the sufficient 
reason that we are totally unable to 
measure our advance or to gauge our pos- 
sessions, either mental or material, save by 
comparison with the attainments of others 



So LIFE 

about us. If consciously inferior to them 
the normal man, the right intentioned man, 
is minded to improve ; is forced by a law of 
his nature to strive to equal or surpass that 
which is seen to be superior, and the pres- 
ence of the superior man is the divinely or- 
dered stimulus to exertion without which 
advance is impossible. Thus and thus only 
has man made headway in the past. Indeed 
the presence and the example of the 
superior is all that prevents him from re- 
lapsing into the unintelligent savagery 
from whence he sprang. Carried to excess 
rivalry, like every other beneficent thing, 
becomes productive of evil. Good things 
in their normal and proper relations always 
become harmful if in excess or if taken out 
of their proper relations, but they do not 
thereby become inherently evil. Fire and 
water are capable of almost infinite destruc- 
tion but they are not therefore of them- 
selves evil. The struggle with our fellows 
in all the affairs of life is not only unescap- 
able but properly regarded and directed is 



LIFE 5 i 

seen to be the motive power in that splendid 
advance man is making from savagery, and 
perhaps from still lower conditions, on- 
ward and upward toward that bourne of 
unknown perfection which the future may 
hold in store. And the necessity is upon 
us. One must bear his part as a good 
soldier in the conflict. Let each accept his 
place. If it be hammer let him strike; if it 
be anvil l£t him bear the brunt as best he 
may. In whatever position we are called to 
stand let us take it and hold it against the 
world and to the end. And amid the tur- 
moil of things by which we are surrounded, 
the dust and sweat and oaths of battle, and 
fear of possible loss, hope of future better- 
ment is the white star that ever brilliantly 
shines beyond the black wreck of present 
distress and temporary defeat. 

Contest and conflict is the law of life. 
The apostle tells us that our life is a war A 
fare, and he speaks the truth. We all know 
men well qualified by acquired knowledge 
and well appointed, as it would appear, for 



52 LIFE 

the work of the world who yet utterly fail 
simply because the combative element is 
lacking. They do not, will not, or cannot, 
force their knowledge into effect upon 
other men. And knowledge is useful only 
when brought into use among men. It can- 
not be imparted to things. 

Take two men, each equally qualified. 
Inspire both with the heaven-born spirit of 
philanthropy, with a sincere desire to ben- 
efit their kind. Give one a combative, will- 
ful disposition. Let the other possess all 
the loveliness of disposition which we may 
suppose characterizes the angels; let him 
have a disclination to offend and a willing- 
ness to be turned aside from his chosen 
methods by appeals made to his good 
nature; then note the result; and the dif- 
ference. The first will impress himself and 
his methods upon men, largely, at the time, 
against their will. This man will end by 
becoming a benefactor. The other will 
weakly wish well to all, but not having the 
stomach for a fight, not wishing to oppose 



LIFE 53 

and destroy the plans of men who stand in 
his way, will really do nothing of value, and 
end in being — if he lives long enough — 
simply an object of pity. 

With the first the star of hope is the ac- 
complishment of his design. This holds 
his thought. The other is turned aside out 
of regard for men to whom he should listen 
only that he may confound and defeat 
them. He loses sight of future betterment 
by deferring to those whom he should 
fight. 

So much is contest and conflict the law 
of our nature that cne does not need to 
invade the region of hyperbole to say that 
it is nearly all of life to us. You listen 
to a famous man only to compare him 
favorably or unfavorably with what has 
gone before. A contest is thus instituted 
in the mind; indeed we can acquire knowl- 
edge in no other way than by a comparison 
of thoughts and in the conflict of ideas 
thus instituted. The prima donna pleases 
you only if she excel some other singer. If 



54 LIFE 

she fall below you, vote your attendance at 
the opera a mere waste of time. You 
watch with intense interest the horses at 
the race track. Who can tell the cause 
of your interest in the triumph of the 
black over the gray? You do not even 
know yourself why you thrilled and 
shouted at the success of the colt you had 
never seen until he came around the turn 
bravely struggling with every nerve em- 
ployed in the effort to win a victory. You 
cheered because your nature bade you 
cheer, and because in every form of conflict 
we see ourselves as possible contestants. 
Should two dogs engage in a fight there is 
something wrong in the makeup of the 
man who does not exult in the victory of 
what appears the weaker party. And should 
the smaller, the under dog in the fight, after 
dogfully doing his best, seem to lack a fair 
chance for his life, I have little love for the 
onlooker who will not interfere to save a 
brave fighter. 

But it is useless to repeat the story 



LIFE 55 

known to all. With every successful man, 
in whatever field engaged, life is divided, 
it has been well said, into three parts; each 
a conflict. (Jhe first third is spent in 
struggling; the second in obtaining a foot- 
hold; and the last third in defending what 
has been gained; and every step of the long 
and toilsome way has been taken with hope 
as the incentive and mainspring of action/) 

Every act of man is first conceived in his 
mind. It there first takes form. The 
thought of to-day becomes the act of to- 
morrow. Thus the thoughts of men are 
matters of chief importance. " As a man 
thinketh so is he." And thought is wonder- 
fully contagious. Smallpox is a fearful 
disease. One does not knowingly en- 
counter it for fear of contagion. But the 
prospect of infection from this source is as 
nothing compared to that experienced by 
those who come in contact with new ideas. 
Let a new thought be brought into exist- 
ence; let it be true, or, at least, have its base 
in truth: let it be one that has to do with 



56 LIFE 

the daily life of man, let it open before his 
vision a brighter prospect, and give him 
more of hope, and almost in a day as it 
were the world is infected and all things 
are henceforth changed in their relations. 
Immediately, too, the new thought begins 
to have its effect upon the acts of men and 
everything is made to seem uncertain. 
Every wave of thought passing over the 
reading, thinking world, as now it does in 
a fortnight, produces more or less of 
change in the aspect of things. In the 
light of new thought we view with chang- 
ing opinion the daily facts of life. Let no 
man deceive himseh; Galileo was right, the 
world does move, and all the men and 
women with it. Let a new thought, or a 
new combination of old ones, infect the 
reading public and straightway a condition 
is created which must be reckoned with in 
any calculation regarding the future. Thus 
coming events cast their shadows before, 
and he who will may read the signs of the 
coming day. 



LIFE 57 

Among all the thoughts of man and con- 
ditions of his mind nothing is so supremely 
important as the presence in his mental 
constitution of hope, that anchor of the 
soul. Give a man firm hope in the future 
and take away all else and he will smilingly 
bide his time, come what may, blow the 
winds of fate against him never so strongly. 
Surround him, on the contrary, with every- 
thing of beauty and of value, and destroy 
hope in his future and that without remedy 
and you have left only a maniac from whom 
reason has fled. Hope is the one thing 
absolutely essential to the mind of man; 
its life, its all. So powerful is it, however, 
that even a little will suffice the need of 
the time. Man lives to acquire ; to gain in yj 
some direction. Hope of this fills his heart 
and occupies his mind. " Where his 
treasure is there will his heart be, also." 
Some small gain, in one direction or 
another, must be his. The scholar, though 
steeped in poverty, is satisfied if able to 
gain in knowledge; the pietist with ad- 



5 8 LIFE 

vance in his peculiar thought; the artist 
with increase of skill, and the man of the 
world with enlarging coffers. But there 
must in all cases be an advance, or misery 
is the result. This is the law. Increase, 
however, need not be great but it must be 
continuous. Hope must have somewhat 
upon which to feed. And hope is only 
sustained by constant advance. Hope of 
future betterment thus becomes a constitu- 
ent part of the man himself. The old lose 
interest in life and are ready to die chiefly 
because ability to acquire and hope of 
betterment have plainly come to an end. 
And this desire, or hope, continually ad- 
vances and must be constantly fed. We are 
often amazed at the conduct of men who, 
though excessively wealthy, still grasp for 
greater riches. We need not be. They only 
obey a law of nature which cannot be 
evaded without penalty. For if a man who 
having formed character as a wealth getter 
ceases to acquire and " retires " he is mis- 
erable. Usually he does not live long. The 



LIFE 59 

demands of his nature cannot be met. And 
this demand, coming from the vital part of 
man, must be reckoned with. It cannot be 
ignored. It affects men by making them 
desirous of acquiring something. What 
that something may be depends upon the 
peculiar constitution of the particular man. 
But he must acquire something. It may be 
either wealth, honor, skill, power, glory, or 
what not, but an advance must be made. If 
these considerations do not move a man we 
say that he is deranged or insane, and we 
speak the truth because he is of unsound 
mind, that is, his mind is seen to be abnor- 
mal or unnatural. This being the case if 
from any cause it becomes impossible for 
men to satisfy the natural desires of the 
mind they are rendered insane to the de- 
gree in which hope is shut off. If hope is 
absolutely and entirely destroyed the man 
is absolutely and entirely insane, as any 
standard authority in this matter will show 
us. Hope in the future is as essential to 
man as the air he breathes. He will do as 



6o LIFE 

well without the one as the other. Woe 
unto him whose plans of self-aggrandize- 
ment include the destruction of the hope of 
future acquisition and betterment in the 
hearts of the great plain people. Let him 
have a care, for if he succeeds he will have 
a nation of madmen upon his hands who, 
when their time is come, will turn a deaf 
ear to his pitiful plea for mercy. 

But hope, notwithstanding its impor- 
tance and its essential value, may lead us 
astray. Too much of hope paralyzes the 
will and destroys that set resolution upon 
which courage and character wait. One 
must know himself. And yet to thorough- 
ly accomplish this he must also know other 
men. " There is nothing common to man," 
said the great Goethe, " that is foreign to 
me." We can only know other men by 
knowing ourselves, and, as truly, we can 
only really know ourselves by knowing 
other men. The fool is he who refuses to 
learn from the experiences of ethers. For 
this is the chief point of difference between 



LIFE 61 

the wise and the unwise. One is ready to 
believe that fire will burn and water drown 
from noting the effects of these agents 
upon other men. The fool will put no faith 
in the power of the hangman's rope to 
strangle until it is about his neck. We, 
who are not fools, are thus able to see the 
evil effects of too large a hope. Perhaps 
the most common example of this being 
the sorrow which comes to us almost with- 
out exception when great hopes are placed 
upon the expected performance of other 
men. Whenever this is your case and all 
that you have and are is very foolishly 
staked upon the truth and loyalty of some 
one whose pecuniary interest is opposed to 
the performance of his duty to you, if he is 
not legally bound and can by hook or crook 
and with an appearance of so-called honesty 
deny your claim I advise you, if not pre- 
pared to take the responsibility of killing 
him, to apply yourself to the consolations 
of religion or philosophy. You will need 
them. He will fail you in your time of 



62 LIFE 

need. " Put not thy trust in princes, O 
Lemuel/' said the wise man, and he might 
have added, " The poor man is made of the 
same clay and will do the same things." 
And I will take the responsibility of saying 
that as the temptations and necessities of 
the poor are greater, so, greater will be his 
delinquencies in the matter of keeping 
faith. The Christ selected twelve men to 
help him reform the world, and at the time 
of his greatest need they all forsook him 
and fled. The braggart among them denied 
him with an oath and the avaricious man' 
sold him for so much money in hand well 
and truly paid. And this is a fair sample 
of the doings of average men under like 
conditions. We, who are not fools, may 
learn from this past experience how to re- 
gard the future. Men of to-day come later 
in time it is true but they are of the same 
blood and like their kith and kin of a 
former day are certain to disappoint a too 
fervent anticipation. It is true that eleven 
of these men afterward repented and 



LIFE 63 

brought forth fruits meet for repentance; 
but this. was after the Man of Sorrows had 
met his fate, alone, upon the tree. So, it is 
barely possible, after your death some one 
may mourn and the " storied urn " show 
forth the ability of the story-teller to — dis- 
guise his thoughts. How a future monu- 
ment may help you in this present to fight 
the battle of life remains for some one else 
to relate. 

Uncertain and problematical as it may be 
with the few, hope placed in the following 
by the general public of a certain and par- 
ticular course is seen, usually, to be the 
merest delusion. They tell us in France it 
is the unexpected that happens. " Blessed 
is the man who expects nothing, for that's 
what he'll get." When we can induce citi- 
zens to turn the cold shoulder to the agree- 
able scamp who wanting their votes does 
them a favor, flatters them, lends them 
small sums of money and withal has such 
a nice way with him, and, instead, vote for 
the best man for the office, even though he 



64 LIFE 

does not belong to their party; then, we 
shall be justified in building great hopes 
upon the political action of the general 
public. Until that time comes, however, 
we shall be obliged to stub along much as 
we have in the past. The longer one lives 
the more he should be able to find out. 

Looking out my window upon the 
crowded street a day or two before Christ- 
mas I saw among the throng upon the side- 
walk a pale, thinly dressed woman leading 
by the hand a bright-faced boy of four or 
five years of age. Mother and son they 
were, evidently. Poverty was written all 
over them, though both were neat and 
clean. A ribbon at the woman's throat and 
the boy's new cap showed an attempt to 
make the best of things that touched my 
heart. The streets were crowded with 
happy people and the shop windows filled 
with an attractive display. What a para- 
dise of enjoyment, held like the joys of 
Tantalus, before the eyes of the child. 
From appearances they had walked in 



LIFE 6 5 

from the country, for the little fellow- 
seemed tired though he held tightly to his 
mother's hand looking up in her care-worn 
face from time to time with an eager ques- 
tioning gaze. Evidently he knew, although 
so young, that the pretty things w r ere not 
for him. They could not buy. Ah! The 
story told by the faces and attitudes of 
those tw r o. And w T hat of the future of that 
boy? Is he always to be denied? What of 
the man who succeeds him, and what of his 
future? Friend, the saddest thought in life 
is of the children of the poor deprived of 
hope. 

In the book of Genesis we read of the 
destruction of the world by a great deluge. 
After a time, we are told, the flood of waters 
began to be assuaged. The patriarch Noah 
wishing, after the storm and stress of the 
great catastrophe were over, to learn if the 
waters were abating, sent out from the 
window of the ark a raven and a dove. The 
raven returned to him not again, but as the 
dove found no rest for the sole of her foot 



66 LIFE 

she came again to him and he put forth his 
hand and took her into the ark. " And he 
stayed yet other seven days; and again he 
sent forth the dove out of the ark. And the 
dove came in to him in the evening, and lo 
in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off; 
so Noah knew that the waters were abated 
from off the earth." 

Thus is it with man after the heyday of 
youth is past and the rush and conflict of 
life have somewhat spent their force. He 
begins to question and inquire regarding 
the mystery of existence. Is there in all the 
wild waste of things surrounding him solid 
ground upon which hope may rest and be 
at peace. From the windows of his soul go 
out the raven and the dove. Thoughts 
gloomy and black with despair flit across 
his mental vision and with "hem, too, go 
the mild and gentle radiance of the spirit of 
peace and hope. The sable plumage and 
hoarse croak of the raven of doubt and 
denial return to him no message of cheer 
and even the dove of hope can find no rest 



LIFE 6 7 

for the sole of her foot, but faithful to her 
trust she returns to cheer by her presence 
his lonely vigils. After a time of weary 
waiting again he sends her forth and again 
she returns bringing as a token of deliver- 
ance near at hand the olive branch of peace. 
The sincere questioner need not long 
despair, somewhere, not far away, in this 
present world, and within reach of all, an 
answer may be found. Amid the wreck 
and ruin of things which we see upon every 
hand solid ground can yet be reached upon 
which hope may rest and be content. If 
one do thoroughly know himself; if he can 
look within his inmost heart and see there 
a great and honorable purpose pure and 
uncontaminated by its fleshly environment 
he can depend upon, he can hope in himself 
and never be ashamed! Thus supported 
men of every age and time, of all religions, 
and of none, have been consciously upheld 
and superbly maintained in the face of dire 
disaster and of death itself. The captive 
soldier called to die for his country at 



68 LIFE 

break of day in the cool and stilly dawn 
faces the firing squad with unflinching 
fortitude, his dependence the innate deity 
within. Socrates, drinking the hemlock; 
Regulus the proud Roman before his Car- 
thaginian executioners; Joan of Arc amid 
the flames of Rouen, with countless throngs 
of lesser and unknown men and women, 
were citizens of the Kingdom of Hope. In 
its realms they live to-day. 

One of the grandest and most assuring 
^thoughts permitted to mortal man is that 
of his own absolute freedom and complete 
supremacy! No power, save that of our 
own will, can injure or destroy us! VThe 
Ego within is the man; the body xmt its 
minister. No mortal hand can touch this, 
save by our leave. Epictetus the slave and 
Marcus Aurelius the Emperor make clear 
the fact that circumstances may be ignored, 
never binding for long the self-centered 
and self-reliant mind of man. 

Would you feel yourself entirely free, and 
absolutely safe? Have, then, some great 



LIFE 6 9 

object in life; some great hope. Live for it 
and if necessary die for it. I pity the man 
who does not feel within his inmost soul 
that in support of a great right, if dire 
necessity were laid upon him, a necessity 
which he could not honorably escape, he, 
too, could without a quiver face the deadly 
platoon of rifles drawn up to< take his life. 
Xo man of sense courts such an end and 
yet I like to believe that there are as many 
to-day as the long and eventful past can 
show who stand ready, now, to risk all in 
support of imperiled truth! 

Be a citizen of the Kingdom of Hope. 
Know yourself for what you are. Live for 
a great object and the peace that passeth 
understanding shall be yours. 




THE LAW OF ADVANCE AND THE 
GOSPEL OF WORK, 



fHE profoundest fact which can be 
brought to the attention of the 
student and the scholar is the law 
of advance immanent in man. Man has 
risen from the cave-dweller, the savage 
and the barbarian to the plane of the 
present. To the future progress of the 
race, assured by this law, no limit appears. 
Man's wagon is hitched to a star! The 

' first written law of Nature, or of God, 
is the Law of Labor. The first com- 

"""mandment is not: " Thou shalt have no 
other Gods before Me." Twenty-five 
hundred years before Moses and his tables 
of stone, according to the chronology of the 
Bible, it was said: " In the sweat of thy 



LIFE 71 

face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return 
unto the ground; for dust thou art and unto 
dust shalt thou return." The most im- 
portant fact, to him who would know the 
reason of things is the law of advance. The 
most pressing and imperative duty imposed 
upon all men everywhere is the law of 
labor. 

Man, in the mass, has slowly risen in the 
mental and moral scale. Individuals, and 
nations, may perish, and have perished; for 
a time retrogression may hold sway and a 
seeming loss occur but as with the succes- 
sive waves upon the seashore the tide rises. 
Though some may appear to recede, suc- 
ceeding waves rise higher and yet higher. 
The tide in the affairs of men has risen and 
will rise in the future. The broad ocean of 
future life upon this planet will float men 
easily and securely over the jagged rocks 
which now bar their advance and chill with 
paralyzing fear their aspirations. The 
future belongs to the youth of to-day. 

In every nation history and tradition run 



72 LIFE 

back to days of savagery. And if we go 
still farther than history or tradition can 
carry us the story of the rocks repeats the 
same tale with added force. Prehistoric 
man was an animal; the fragmentary re- 
mains of the cave-dwellers of a remote 
past revealing, we are told, depths of sav- 
agery which can be only dimly compre- 
hended by us. So, take it all in all the 
scholarship of our time seems agreed in 
this ; humankind, the race, the average man, 
has slowly advanced mentally and morally. 
But progress while in the long run sure has 
not been uninterrupted — time appearing a 
matter of no moment. When we take into 
consideration the facts and surroundings, 
that man has risen at all is a wonder; that 
he has steadily and continuously risen, 
seemingly as the result of a purpose, is 
amazing; that he has risen in opposition to 
his natural instincts, to the evident drift of 
his surroundings and the still greater 
hindrances of his own ignorance, weakness 
and the groveling and debasing character 



LIFE 73 

of his animal inheritance is a fact astound- 
ing in its importance because of the light 
thus cast upon his future. 

Back of man's advance we have, then, a 
force superior to his own will. For it is 
evident to the most casual observer that it 
was not in his mind that results first took 
form. The mariner's compass first came 
into use as an aid to robbery, outrage and 
murder, mere piracy in fact. Gunpowder, 
stumbled upon at first, as a chemical curios- 
ity in the alchemist's search for the univer- 
sal flux which should turn all to gold, later 
took its place as a simple and economical 
aid in the matter of murder. Nobody then 
saw what was to come from its use. Least 
of all did its users intend man's advance. 
It was used to stay that advance — to kill. 
The printing press resulted from the efforts 
of certain German artisan: to copy books 
and get gain somewhat faster than certain 
other copyists. The inventor who is not 
moved by hope of gain is carried forward 
by the peculiar constitution of his mind, by 



74- LIFE 

the power which made him what he is. Ask 
him; he will tell you that certain problems 
force themselves upon his attention. Do 
what he will he cannot escape them. He 
did not create his mind any more than he 
did his body or his life. 

Advance has constantly been made and 
yet so far as we can see the masses of men 
have done what they could to prevent it. 
Given the opportunity they chose Barabbas 
and condemned the Christ, as they always 
have done whenever a like opportunity pre- 
i,j sented itself. The fittest morally has never 
\ survived. The strongest battalions held 
the field. And men have always endorsed 
this brutal verdict. Shakespere name's 
Caesar as " The greatest man of all this 
world " largely, perhaps, because he may 
have been the greatest murderer, having 
assisted, it is said, in destroying three 
millions of human lives, accompanied in 
many instances, with revolting outrage of 
the most fiendish description. But such 
men have been chiefly honored and pat- 



LIFE 75 

terned after. These have survived while 
the good, the true and the faithful have 
been despitefully used and put to shame. 
And this has always been the case, if the 
truth they taught has been new enough 
and true enough to arouse the natural 
ferocity of man. For nothing have men so 
great and abiding hate and opposition as 
for a new truth leading to the greater free- 
dom of men from whose toil and tears they 
profit. Against advance of this kind the 
controllers and managers of men have al- 
ways fought, and will fight. And even 
those to be benefited do not, and will not, 
aid. No greater miracle ever passed before 
the eyes of man than that under these cir- 
cumstances continuous moral advance 
should take place. /In all the doings of men 
in a large and general way and in all the 
so-called laws of nature, honor, morality 
and decency, as we understand these things, 
have no place and no existence whatever. 
The survival of the fittest to withstand rude, 
hard and morally revolting conditions has 



76 LIFE 

been the rule. The plant that crowded 
other plants out of existence has lived and 
received its nourishment, largely, from the 
decay of its former rivals. The animal that 
secured the most of the mutually acquired 
booty, thus depriving other individuals of 
its race to the greatest extent, generally to 
the extent of its ability, has become the 
largest, the strongest and the progenitor of 
the future herd. Hardier and more force- 
ful races of men have in like manner oc- 
cupied the ground. We can see that this 
has been the way of the world and the habit 
of man, in a large and general way without 
exception. Selfishness and violence have 
ruled all large aggregations of men to the 
utter exclusion of what are known as the 
higher motives. For betterments which at 
the time seemed far in the future, when 
placed in opposition to present profit, no 
government, no large body of men, ever 
yet declared. ( Religion, moral precepts, 
truth, and even what has been called " com- 
mon " honestv, all have been totally insuf- 



LIFE 77 

ficient to prevent the commission by 
nations of the grossest crimes when in pur- 
suit of gain. No nation ever yet refrained 
from profitable " business " because it had 
been proved morally wrong. Not till it be- 
came unprofitable was it discovered by the 
nation to be wrong. Or, if forced to 
change the source of this came from with- 
out. (Chattel slavery, as a comparatively re- 
cent instance, perished not because men in- 
tended to abolish it but because they did 
not, and would not, and in opposition to 
the combined efforts of a great people to 
preserve it. The South began the war to 
save it, and the first act of the separated 
North was by solemn resolution of Con- 
gress to provide, promise and declare that 
if the seceders would only return, the evil, 
where it existed, should be preserved and 
perpetuated. And yet in another century 
the " fictions agreed upon " will doubtless 
tell a very different tale. Of late we have 
heard much of the boast of a political party 
that it abolished slavery. As a matter of 
fact and record it enacted its perpetuity. 



78 LIFE 

The simple truth is that man is totally 
ignorant of the hidden springs and sources 
from whence come the impulses that impel 
him to the course he pursues. These im- 
pulses make the man, they control him; 
they are the man himself; but of their 
origin who can tell? Long after a man is 
able to bring himself into the world and 
fashion a body to his liking he will still be 
powerless to construct a soul to inhabit 
the tenement thus created. " Man make 
himself!" " Every man his own Creator!" 
What nonsense! v He comes into the world 
protesting with all his puny might against 
the fate which thus thrusts life upon him 
and he leaves it against his will and only 
because he must) 

The law of advance which forces man in 
the mass to go forward is the most stupen- 
dous fact that can occupy the attention of 
thoughtful men. Individuals may perish, 
may fail, may become mere dust in the 
balance of time, but the race will go for- 
ward, is finally, in the far eons of the future 



LIFE 79 

to become the arbiter of its own destiny. 
But all is not yet plain sailing. 

There is a beautiful story by the famous 
Doctor Johnson, which if you have not 
read I advise you to procure and read. It 
is entitled: " Rasselas or the Happy Val- 
ley." I have not read it for years myself. 
My copy is lost, has been stolen, or bor- 
rowed — which may be much the same 
thing. I remember, however, very well the 
lesson taught, and taught very beautifully, 
too. It is the futility of human hopes and 
wishes. Rasselas was an imaginary Prince 
of Abyssinia who became the possessor of 
all that his eyes could perceive or his heart 
desire. And yet he was most miserable. 
The story is told in such a way that we are 
forced to see, as in a mirror, our own eager, 
longing, wistful selves. To see, too, that 
the day which beholds us in full possession 
of all upon which we have set our hearts 
closes upon us the door of hope and happi- 
ness. It is a lesson which each must learn 
for himself. And yet it is a lesson which no 



8o LIFE ' 

one ever fully realizes. To his latest day 
man successfully deceives himself. That it 
is better farther on we are convinced. That 
the future has much of good laid up for us 
we all believe. And it is well that it is so, 
even though at last we are forced to say 
with the preacher: " Vanity of vanities all 
is vanity/' For when hope is dead the man 
has ceased to be. 

The pursuit of happiness is thus the 
natural and therefore reasonable and proper 
occupation of men. Indeed I presume no 
thoughtful person will for a moment ques- 
tion the fact that all men do seek happiness, 
in one way or another. Some, it is true, 
do this in ways which to us appear short 
sighted, foolish or wicked, and yet if we 
examine closely we shall see that the thief 
steals with the insane desire of adding 
-to the sum of his future enjoyment. So, 
too, with the self-denying enthusiast, he 
also desires to lay up treasure — somewhere. 

Hope of improvement, in some direc- 
tion, thus becomes the verv base and foun- 



LIFE 8 1 

elation stone of all healthful mental life. 
And every man lives in his thoughts. In- 
deed, I will go farther and say that every 
animal lives also in its thoughts and hopes. 
Destroy all hope of the future in your horse 
or your dog and as a horse or as a dog 
these animals have ceased to be valuable, 
either to you or to themselves. 

Man lives to acquire. Something more 
he must have. Gradual, even though slow, 
betterment of condition is the unvarying 
and absolute demand of his nature. This 
must be met or harm results. Nothing 
takes the place of it with any man. Hope 
must live within. Destroy this and the 
man has lost all reason for existence. 
Liberty first, then opportunity for further 
gain. This is the law. No matter what 
place the reasonable man may occupy in 
the mental or social scale liberty and op- 
portunity satisfy and content him with his 
surroundings. Unparalled hardships only 
serve to make the successful gold hunter 
hilarious. Hope buoys him up. Life and 



82 LIFE 

an opportunity to acquire! This it is to 
live! And this suffices for us all. The 
peasant who by the severest toil is slowly 
increasing his little store is the sure support 
of that government, whatever its form, 
which assures him his small opportunity. 
And such support as his is the only sure 
reliance of government in any age or time. 
Founded upon anything else it is sure to 
fall. The scholar will content himself so 
long as knowledge with him increases. The 
merchant is satisfied while gains continue. 

Casselas was unhappy because acquire- 
ment had come to an end. Alexander wept 
for more worlds to conquer. The natural 
law of advance deeply implanted in man's 
nature could not be satisfied. Nature has 
ever her revenges in store. We cannot 
outwit her. The one essential and impera- 
tive condition which must be met in our 
treatment of ourselves, and in the settle- 
ment of the problems of society is this : The 
law of advance must rule with us. We must 
continue to acquire — in some field. The 



LIFE 8 3 

old and the ignorant lose heart and interest 
in life principally — and this is reason 
enough — because unable to improve, to ac- 
quire. The one absolutely essential thing 
to be done for the great " underworld/' for 
suffering humanity, is to re-create hope 
within the hearts of men. This can be 
effected in one way only: By securing for 
them the ability, the opportunity to im- 
prove, to acquire, to advance. If this cannot 
be done all is useless. 

The youth, the scholar, the ambitious be- 
ginner in the work of the world is bound by 
the same law. Advance must continue. 
'Stagnation is death. When at last the 
wheels of life stand still all is over and the 
dream is at an end. Movement is the law 
of life. How shall it continue? Answering 
this I have but one remedy to propose. It 
is an old one. But very true. I preach the 
gospel of work. 

Work is the exertion of physical strength 
or mental effort. A gospel is a god-spell or 
good story. A recount of the advantages 



84 LIFE 

of work is a rehearsal cf glad tidings, indeed. 
We all desire to accomplish somewhat in 
the scheme of things. But a mere languid 
desire to be of use in the world avails but 
little. One who is weakly in the right is in 
the events of the day no match for him 
who, though in the wrong, has an invinci- 
ble determination to do evil. For in the 
design of things already unfolded in the 
history of the past we see force everywhere 
triumphant. To this there is no exception 
since time began. But force, virtue, power, 
is not all of one order. There is the force 
physical: Mere brutality, so many pounds 
in weight, a given measure of gravitation, 
the heavier battalions, the larger guns. 
And, too, we have the force mental, in- 
tellectual, moral. Of the two the latter is 
the more powerful but both are to be 
reckoned with in all the affairs of life. For 
both are factors in the problem. To suc- 
ceed in the battle of life, for life is indeed a 
warfare, we must be supplied with one or 
the other, or both, of these. If we have 



LIFE 8 5 

neither our doom is already sealed and our 
epitaphs may be written. ( Force, of some 
kind, always succeeds. No instance to the 
contrary is upon record, or ever will be re- 
corded^ The eternal laws of God are true. 
The battle is to the swift and the strong, j 
unless swiftness and strength can be over- 
matched by intellectual acuteness or moral 
power.- And moral force not only makes 
the infant's sinews strong as steel but 
possesses that subtle all-pervading power 
which enables its possessor to enter the 
fortress of the enemy weakening and deci- 
mating his ranks. Force, then, is to win 
in every struggle. From this there is no 
escape. To succeed we must have greater 
force, of some kind, than that we oppose. 
And we must oppose. He who has no 
stomach for the fight of life, who hopes for 
some favoring breeze upon whose wings he 
may be wafted to a haven of rest may as 
well now retire. Further procedure will be 
conducted without regard to him. It is not 
enough that one be w r ell prepared for 



86 LIFE 

the work of life, though this is certainly 
important. Nor is it enough that the well 
prepared be willing to work. This will not 
suffice. Something more is needed. It is 
this: An invincible determination to suc- 
ceed. Good resolutions never execute 
themselves. Many a man carefully edu- 
cated, willing to do and followed by the 
good wishes and the prayers of kindred and 
friends utterly fails to become a factor in 
the work of the world, and like a painted 
ship upon a painted ocean floats idly, si- 
lently and uselessly upon the tide of time. 
Force is lacking. With force, of the right 
kind, anything may be done. Even so soft 
a thing as a tallow candle may be fired 
through a board. Intensity is a substitute 
for weight. Soft iron made to revolve 
rapidly enough cuts freely the hardest steel. 
The candle must be trained and directed in 
its course by passing through a long and 
smooth gunbarrel. And back of it all must 
be the explosive force of gunpowder. 
Then the seemingly impossible happens. 



^ 



LIFE 87 

So is it in the affairs of men. Knives are 
instruments laboriously made for cuttting 
purposes. And yet no one ever knew a 
knife to cut unless force was used. Of itself 
no knife ever cut anything. Or ever will. 
And the duller the knife the more force re- 
quired. So of men. Most of us need a 
good deal of pushing. Some of us are so 
soft that as in the case of the tallow candle 
an explosion of some kind is absolutely 
necessary before we can be made to see the 
point. 

Education is well, preparation is much, 
but more important still is the forceful will 
which without regard to obstacles pushes 
straight on toward the goal. 
^The law of advance compels men to im- 
prove, to acquire, or to sufferX By work 
we improve, we acquire and we prevent 
that sorrow and suffering which lack of ad- 
vance is sure to bring. Thus is summed 
up the true business of life. But work must 
be properly directed. Strong men, forceful 
men, are needed; must be had. That goes 



88 LIFE 

without saying. Given the opportunity, 
however, the man must not only be pre- 
pared to do the work to be done, must not 
only have the requisite force, but he must 
be properly directed. Men are wanted who 
when given the gun can hit tne mark. 
Some men couldn't hit the ground if they 
fell out of a tree. Theories are well enough 
in their place but men cannot always 
theorize. The time of action must come 
and when this is at hand mere theory is and 
should be at a discount. It is true that a 
hypothesis is found at the base and origin of 
all knowledge. But this is only in the tenta- 
tive stage of things, for a hypothesis being 
a mere supposition there are no limits to 
hypotheses other than that of the human 
imagination, and therefore these may be 
made to embrace anything and everything. 
A theory, a hypothesis, that cannot be 
proven is therefore little better than a guess. 
And anybody can guess, one guess being as 
good as another until proof is furnished. 
When, however, the guess has been made 



LIFE 8 9 

and proof positive is forthcoming then the 
time for action is at hand. And it must be 
seized and firmly held, otherwise irresolu- 
tion spoils all. The pale and sickly cast of 
thought, which forever deliberates, char- 
acterizes the inefficient, the cowardly and 
the worthless. And yet among the dream- 
ers are many most lovable souls. It may 
be that these furnish much of value to the 
world. Their thoughts, however, can only 
be of value when transmuted into action by 
men of sterner stuff. Thomas Carlyle, that 
great thinker, sets forth in trenchant style 
the proper relation between the idea, the 
thought and theory of things, upon the one 
side and action upon the other, thus: 
" Every man, every situation, has a duty, 
an ideal, which follow or be damned." 
" Do what thou canst, be it ever so little 
thou art able to do — do it in God's name. 
Up! Up!" And again he says: " Con- 
viction is useless until it convert itself into 
conduct." And yet no man, I think, has 
more forcibly set forth the power of the 



9 o LIFE 

ideal over the lives of men and the work of 
the world. Surely, I would not for a mo- 
ment be understood as belittling the power 
of ideas for it is the low idea or the lack of 
ideas that belittles a man while, conversely, 
a great idea will raise a clod. And Mr. 
Carlyle has set forth this truth most clearly. 
" Is not a symbol," he says, " for him who 
has eyes to behold it some dim revelation 
of the God-like?" And ideas exert their 
force most powerfully, too, upon men and 
women who are not ordinarily considered 
thoughtful, for it is eternally true that all 
men, even the most ignorant and besotted, 
live in their thoughts. The soldier follows 
his flag. But the flag is for him, and for us 
all I trust, a symbol, an ideal, a represen- 
tation of something unseen. Behind its 
folds stand the immortal fathers of the 
revolution, the firm resolve of Bunker Hill, 
the glories of Yorktown and the deathless 
fame of Washington. In it we see the 
symbol of liberty, our homes, our firesides 
and all we hold most dear. Behind so 



LIFE 91 

many yards of bunting we behold the ideal 
for which men are ever ready to die. But 
glorious as are symbols and ideas they are 
valueless unless joined to action. Our flag 
is indeed a grand one but it is grand in our 
eyes only because it represents deeds done 
and actions performed. And its grandeur 
will depart whenever we are unwilling to 
defend its folds with shot and shell! Deeds 
are yet required. Our sons must still sup- 
port the standard our fathers raised. And 
they must support in the same way, by ac- 
tion, by deeds of daring and the exercise of 
that supreme quality; manly courage. For 
this thereis no substitute. Nothing has ever, 
or can ever, take its place. They say that 
God Almighty hates a coward. How this 
may be I do not know. The fact is my 
facilities for finding out things like that 
are meager indeed, I cannot say. But this 
I will aver: The American people, among 
whom you my dear sir are to live have an 
infinite contempt for lack of nerve which 
if you show they will take no pains to con- 



92 LIFE 

ceal. x\nd courage is not only required 
upon the battlefield, it must be shown 
every day of our lives in the work of the 
world we are called upon to do. Why do 
men lie and women, alas, prevaricate? The 
reason is this: They fear to tell the truth. 
The worker needs courage as much, per- 
haps more, than the soldier. " Truth is a 
sweet mistress but only the very brave may 
follow her." And whoever undertakes to 
follow truth will I can assure you have 
abundant opportunity to put in practice all 
the courage he may possess or can acquire. 
But it must be summoned. Courage is re- 
quired. He who has it not may as well 
retire and acknowledge himself beaten in 
the strife. It may, however, be gradually 
developed. Harriet Martineau, I think it 
was, who wrote: "Each and every man 
owes it to society to calmly and disoassion- 
ately set forth with supreme disregard to 
the opinions of others what to him seems 
just and true." 

Think this over carefully and then un- 



LIFE 93 

dertake to practice it and you will have 
abundant opportunity to exercise what I 
have called the supreme virtue — courage. 
And yet this is the message to the world 
specially confided to you. " What to you 
seems just and true." This is the measure 
of truth given into your keeping. And yet 
I will venture to remark that but few who 
have begun to think for themselves dare 
fully and unqualifiedly support and defend 
through good and evil report all they 
think to be true. Still, by so much as we 
fail in this by so much are we false to our 
God, to our fellows and to ourselves. 

We may, however, comfort ourselves 
with this : The work of. the world has al- 
ways been done by very imperfect men and 
women. Though strength, force, power, in 
some direction has always been manifested. 
Look at the bible worthies. One can easily 
fling a cat through the rents in the reputa- 
tions of many of these people. And yet in 
every instance some strong faculty, some 
abiding conviction, some supreme quality, 



94 LIFE 

saved the hero, the sage and the prophet, 

separating him from the wastrel and the 

brute. The most that any one can hope to 

be remembered for is a sentence or two, 

some few words of cheer, a deed, an act, a 

helping hand to some groping fellow 

traveler upon life's thorny path. Let us 

then nobly resolve despite our weakness 

and past failures to leave behind us some 

footprint upon the sands of time, which: 

" A forlorn and shipwrecked brother 
Seeing, shall take heart again." 

Time would fail me were I to undertake 
to rehearse the instances in the history of 
noted men and women showing the truth of 
my statement that very imperfect men have 
done and must in future do the work of the 
world. This is known to be true and yet 
it may be well for me to attempt to 
strengthen the conviction already existing, 
for there are those who, strange as it may 
seem, attack this view. These people tell 
us that men must first be made better be- 
fore they are capable of any good thing, 



LIFE 95 

when in fact they should first do some good 
thing that they may thereby be made better. 
One must do what he can, now. This will 
give him strength for the next act. All his- 
tory shows the weakness and fallibility of 
human instruments and it as clearly shows 
the all-conquering march of the race up- 
ward to higher planes of thought and 
action. The factors employed have ever 
been imperfect men and women. These 
will continue to be the factors in all human 
action. There are no others. Even though 
imperfect let us drag some stone of error 
from the roadway traversed by those who 
shall come after us. But we shall have op- 
position even in this. Olive Wendell 
Holmes compares the dawning of a new 
idea to the turning over of a stone long 
embedded in the soil. After a realistic de- 
scription of the blind and wriggling crea- 
tures which find a habitation under the * 
rock he says: " But no sooner is the 
wholesome light of day let in upon this 
compressed and blinded community of 



9 6 LIFE 

creeping things than all of them which en- 
joy the luxury of legs — and some of them 
have many — rush 'round wildly butting 
each other and everything in their way, 
and end in a general stampede for under- 
ground retreats from the region poisoned 
by sunshine." 

The light of truth hurts only noxious 
things. Noxious things, however, do not 
know themselves as such. Some of them 
have very effective stings. 

In directing our work we must, at last, 
depend upon ourselves. Each must select 
for himself the particular field in which he 
will labor. Or, possibly this has been 
selected for him by the peculiar constitution 
of his mind. " Be what nature intended you 
to be," said one, " and you will succeed. 
Be anything else and you are ten thousand 
times worse than a failure." And I will add 
happy above all the sons of men is he who 
is able through life to follow the natural 
bent of his mind. This natural bent is the 
stamp of the Creator which should show 



LIFE 97 

him his work. Let him be wise in his 
choice. 

Possibly it may be unwise to point out 
some of the principles regarded by me as 
of great value in determining the false from 
the true, and thus in directing our work in 
the world. I shall,, however, venture very 
briefly to note some of these. 

First: It may be said with absolute truth 
in the words of Victor Hugo: " There are 
no bad plants, or men, only bad cultiva- 
tors/' The Great Spirit, we are told, sur- 
veyed his work and pronounced it all " very 
good." It is good, and evil does not exist 
as a positive entity. What appears to us as 
evil is either imperfect, excessive or mis- 
directed good. Let us undertake, for a 
moment, to create a line of demarkation, 
placing upon one side of this every quality 
considered evil — for good and evil are 
simply qualities attached to things — and on 
the other all those qualities ordinarily con- 
sidered good, or of value to men. We shall 
now become convinced that of all thus 



gS LIFE 

labeled " good " there is absolutely nothing 
not capable of perversion or of becoming 
bad. We shall also see that dl named evil, 
under certain circumstances, is capable of 
use and of becoming of value to man. Evil 
exists, in this world at least, only in the 
mind of man, and resides there simply and 
only as imperfect, excessive or misdirected 
good. 

- Secondly: Everything of value to man 
results from a proper harmonization of op- 
posing forces. Nothing considered good 
exists which does not arise from an equi- 
librium first maintained between antagonis- 
tic powers, conditions or qualities. Man 
himself affords a striking example of this. 
Harmony must be established between the 
physical and the mental, between the ani- 
mal and the intellectual. If either is in ex- 
cess harm results and evil is produced. The 
true man, the wise man and the successful 
man is the product of the equilibrium be- 
tween soul and body first established. 
Mens sano in cor pore sano. And this duality 



LIFE 99 

of things ascends to the highest space and 
descends to the lowest depths. It com- 
prises all. The solar system is held in place 
by the equilibrium first maintained between 
centrifugal and centripetal forces. Day and 
night, heat and cold, positive and negative, 
summer and winter, light and darkness, 
male and female, and all forces of the uni- 
verse repeat the law. All of value — and 
even life itself — comes from the harmoniza r 
tion of opposing forces. All harm, or evil, 
arises from a lack of harmonization; from 
imperfect, excessive or misdirected effort. 
This may be extended, I think, to every 
field of inquiry. I shall not here attempt to 
illustrate. 

Thirdly: In forming our opinions we are 
restricted to two methods, for there are but 
two. First; one must judge of new 
thoughts presented to him by comparing 
them with his own: or, Secondly; he must 
judge of them by his opinion of the man 
who utters them. The cecond is said to be 
the distinctively feminine method. If a 



ioo LIFE 

woman likes a person or a speaker she is 
said to be nearly sure to approve what he 
may say that is new or theretofore un- 
known to her. That this is a distinctively 
feminine method I most emphatically deny. 
The uninformed man fashions what he calls 
his opinions in this way. As a matter of 
fact he has no opinions. He has only 
prejudices. And prejudice is the idea's 
poor relation; prejudice and opinion bear- 
ing much the same relation to each other 
that gizzards do to respectable stomachs. 
And when we, for of course we have all 
passed beyond the gizzard stage, attempt 
to pass upon the value of thought by com- 
paring it with our own, we are appalled by 
the fact, soon discerned, that cur own 
thought, our only measure, is imperfect 
and faulty. Alas ! how imperfect and faulty, 
then, must be alLour work. 

Some years ago I attended a G2bate in 
which important matters were discussed. 
Both sides of the question were ably pre- 
sented. At the close a person present said 



LIFE 



101 



to me: "When you hear Mr. of 

the affirmative you think he is all right and 
when you hear Mr. of the nega- 
tive you think he is all right. Now what 
are you going to do?" 

Sure enough, what is such a person to 
do? The trouble with this person was that 
which afflicts all uneducated, uninformed 
men and women in this world of ours. He 
had within himself no continuing citadel of 
intelligence upon which he was privileged 
to reply. It is for us who have begun the 
ethical struggle to remember that unless 
we can depend upon ourselves, and the 
God within, our work will finally be re- 
jected and we ourselves thrust aside as of 
little worth. 

Man has only begun the work of the 
world. True education can never stop 
short of the Great White Throne itself. 
Every truly intelligent man regards himself 
as a student and a learner to the end of his 
days. And if there is another stage of ex- 
istence beyond this improvement will there 



102 LIFE 

continue. For myself I believe there is, 
and I believe also that future existence 
proves pre-existence. We are in the mid- 
dle of things. And all of us upon an ascend- 
ing scale. Advance is the law of the Uni- 
verse. Some may have advanced further 
than others. But for every son and 
daughter of mortality there is room in the 
Father's House. 

For us all there is but one law and one 
duty. The law is the law of advance and 
the duty is to " Work while it is day, for the 
night cometh in which no man can work."' 







THE PROGRESS OF MAN. 



:pf| rimeval man was a savage. He built 
WlM his habitation of sticks and bark. 
^t Woman, forced thus to dwell in con- 
stant fearful thought of the deadly crawling 
serpent, spent her days in toil and her nights 
in fear. Our progenitors lived a life of mere 
animalism, oppressed by fearful forebodings 
of evil things to come. The rustling of the 
leaves upon the boughs of every tree be- 
tokened the presence of influences they 
were anxious to placate. Dominated by 
fear of things they were unable to under- 
stand, they lived a life we can now look 
back upon only with feelings of deepest 
aversion and disgust. Fear was the con- 
trolling motive. If they worshipped it was 
only that they might avert the avenging 



io4 LIFE 

stroke. If they reveled, it was with antici- 
pations of punishment to come. Among 
savages to-day we see in fetichism a sur- 
vival of primitive life and are thus enabled 
to judge of the effects produced by the 
prevalence of fear; that worst and most de- 
grading passion known to man. Under its 
control all the finer emotions shrivel and 
die and there is built up among men the 
reign of tooth and claw; of mere brute 
force. 

It is indeed a far cry from that distant 
day to ours; from such a scene as I have 
faintly sketched to the homes of to-day 
surrounded by all the endearments of mod- 
ern life. A vast distance separates us from 
the former time. Looking backward we 
are enabled to trace the slow and devious 
progress of man. The story of this ad- 
vance is the history of all that has gone be- 
fore. It embraces all that is known by us. 
To recount all the steps taken or to attempt 
such a work would be a most presumptu- 
ous undertaking; time would net suffice 



LIFE 105 

nor my abilities allow. But to set forth an 
opinion regarding the manner in which 
man has advanced may perhaps be per- 
mitted. 

That the position held by the race to-day 
is vastly superior to that of the far-distant 
past will be universally admitted. How 
this has come about and by what means is 
matter for serious difference of opinion. 
And yet the steps t:.ken are in the main 
clearly to be seen. Most of us are, however, 
held and bound by the power of precon- 
ceived opinion. We have adhered to cer- 
tain views, opinions, or prejudices because 
of the accident of birth in this or that coun- 
try; from the fact that we belong, through 
no fault or merit of our own, to this or that 
nationality, and, as a consequence, to this 
or that religion or school of thought. Thus 
in great measure our opinions have been 
fixed for us before we were born. Oliver 
Wendell Holmes was right in saying that 
to properly educate a boy one ought to be- 
gin with his grandmother, for if this an- 



106 LIFE 

cestor be superstitious and a believer in 
signs and omens the effects will not be 
wanting in the life of the boy. That the re- 
sulting man, of whom the boy is father, will 
have some pet superstition of his own is a 
fact that may be counted upon with utmost 
certainty. Thus all men are quite naturally 
divided into opposing schools of thought 
by circumstances over which they have 
little control. Most remain mere passive 
members of the school into which they 
were born, few having sufficient individu- 
ality to escape the mental swaddling 
clothes provided for them by what we call 
heredity and environment. So, when the 
subject of man's advance and the means by 
which it has been secured are brought for- 
ward, differences of opinion are to be ex- 
pected and provided for. In this matter, 
as in most others, two great divisions may 
be made to contain the large variety of 
opinions advanced. 

First: There are those who strenuously 
assert that progress can only be secured by 



LIFE 107 

change first effected in the mind of man; 
that man must first advance morally and 
mentally before any improvement can be 
hoped for in social and economic condi- 
tions. This is the view which has been 
quite generally held and is even now advo- 
cated by large numbers of most worthy 
people. Substantially, the position held is 
this : In order that the life of men may be 
placed upon a more elevated plane, that 
conditions and surroundings with them 
may be bettered, that material progress 
may be secured, they must first rise men- 
tally and morally. 

Secondly: There are those who tell us 
that it can be shown by the history of man's 
advance in the past and by the most con- 
vincing proofs that the progress of the race 
has only been secured, nationally and in a 
large and general way, by change first 
effected in the physical or economic condi- 
tions surrounding the masses of the people, 
and, therefore, that the first step in man's 
future advance must necessarily establish 
for him improved physical surroundings. 



108 LIFE 

The difference between the two state- 
ments is most radical. I shall attempt to 
set it forth. But first I shall proceed to 
speak of progress attempted by means of 
appeals chiefly directed to the moral nature 
of man. However, it may be in individual 
and particular instances, the moral prog- 
ress of a nation can only be brought about 
Aby the slow spread of general public educa- 
tion and enlightenment. Before any great 
change can take place in the mental life of 
a people there must be not only the pro- 
mulgation of new truth on the part of a 
more enlightened few but there must 
also occur a pronounced change in the 
thought of the masses. Or in the absence 
of this a complete breaking up of old 
associations and conditions by the inter- 
vention of armed force. The first, the 
usual and ordinary method, is the evolu- 
tionary method, which proceeds slowly 
and with but little regard to the passage 
of time. The second is the revolutionary 
method in which vase changes are often 



LIFE ioo 

r Jv 

brought about. (But even by this method j * 

changes to be permanent, to be produc- 
tive of general advancement, must pro- 
ceed upon the lines indicated in the first 
method} As an instance we have the French 
Revolution, followed by the The Reign of 
Terror. Here it is clearly seen that al- 
though a complete political change was 
effected the general mass of the people not 
being prepared for the new doctrines of lib- 
erty, equality and fraternity, a return was 
made almost immediately to the military 
despotism of Napoleon. Now it ought to 
be clear and plain to all that no great and 
salutary change can take place in the life 
of the French until they are thoroughly 
prepared for it. And this preparation must 
embrace not only a mere majority, but, in 
addition, there must be a practical unanim- 
ity of thought embracing the whole body 
of the people. Two thousand years ago the 
Greek philosophers promulgated the high- 
est truths. Mixed somewhat with the bar- 
barity of the time there was brought for- 



no LIFE 

ward by Plato the highest possible concep 
tions of life and duty with relation to the 
social compact. And yet upon the social 
life of the Greeks there was produced no 
appreciable effect. Coming down to our 
own times we are forcibly reminded of the 
truth here set forth. The evils of black 
slavery had been clearly seen by men of 
advanced minds long before the formation 
of the federal compact. But by the general 
public it was received as a divine institu- 
tion. For a generation previous to the 
abolition of slavery, however, it became the 
great and burning, moral, economic and 
political question ever present in the minds 
of the people. Slowly and gradually a 
change was effected by the progress of 
general public enlightenment and finally it 
became possible to appeal to sympathy and 
sentiment; those powerful and most effec- 
tive aids. When the ground had been thus 
prepared by universal thought and general 
public comment and discussion, Harriet 
Beecher Stowe launched her celebrated 



LIFE in 

work " Uncle Tom's Cabin." It was eager- 
ly read. Its teachings were received and 
the powerful effect of sympathy and senti- 
ment in a cause which had been previously 
thoroughly exploited were at once mani- 
fested. Had Mrs. Stowe produced her 
book fifty years before it would have fallen 
dead from the press. She would have been 
regarded as an insane enthusiast, her teach- 
ings as destructive of public order, and she 
herself little better than an infidel, in that 
she questioned the justice of a divine in- 
stitution. 

I think any one who will carefully 
examine the records of the past must be 
convinced that mental progress can be 
made and that mankind can go forward 
morally only by means of the slow and 
gradual progress of knowledge among the 
masses of men.N It is not enough that a few 
be possessed of the truth, for, as has been 
abundantly demonstrated by the history of 
the past, if the truth which the few who are 
advanced teach is new enough and true 



ii2 LIFE 

enough, they will simply win for them- 
selves the hatred and the animosity of men. 
They can in no way influence public action 
until the masses of men are prepared by 
previous education to receive the truth. 
Indeed I think it is absolutely certain that 
truth always brings harm at first to a peo- 
ple not previously prepared for its recep- 
tion. Afterward, when the minds of men 
have been enlarged and their eyes opened, 
good is produced, but at first even truth is 
harmful. Jesus, the great Revolutionist, 
clearly taught this and was certainly aware 
of it when he said: " I came not to bring 
peace but a sword." The teaching of this 
man, while containing the veritable truth 
of God Himself, certainly did bring, as we 
now see, a sword. It certainly did set the 
son against the father, and the daughter 
against the mother, as he foretold. Society 
was convulsed and the sword was drawn as 
a result of the promulgation of truth which 
was too new and too true for the people 
who heard it. The religious wars which 



LIFE 113 

resulted have probably cost the civilized 
world more lives, more misery and greater 
calamity than ever proceeded from the 
teaching of error/indeed everything shows 
us that men must be gradually prepared by 
the slow process of education before they 
are enabled to profit by or even to compre- 
hend the truth.) All history indicates this, 
and as human nature is ever the same the 
future can only, in a general way, be a repe- 
tition of the past. 

Philosophers, moralists, philanthropists, 
have all attempted to change the current of 
events among men by bringing forth what 
they considered new truths. No doubt these 
pronouncements have had their effect in 
each and every case. No truth once lodged 
in the mind of man has ever been lost, 
but the promulgators have always been dis- 
appointed in their thought of producing 'im- 
mediate results. The new truth has been of 
service only by slowly modifying previous- 
ly received ideas. The new has never at 
any time completely supplanted the old. 



114 LIFE 

To-day, as in the past, we find enthusiasts — 
men of the most sincere convictions and 
inspired by the highest motives, — who are 
pursuing the course followed by those who 
have preceded them. They have fondly 
imagined it possible to induce the great 
mass of men, the general public, the body 
politic, to adopt in full their thought. And 
yet all calm observers must have gradually 
come to the conclusion that this is entirely 
and absolutely impossible. (Indeed some of 
the wisest observers are of opinion that 
it is impossible for man to hinder or ad- 
vance in any appreciable degree the grad- 
ual evolution of the race from the lowest 
forms of savage life onward and upward to 
the plane of that civilization which only 
the future can know. ) Yet thousands upon 
thousands of men believe that if it be possi- 
ble to induce a mere majority to pass a law, 
to place upon the statute books a moral 
mandate, that thereby the thought of man 
and his daily action, which proceeds from 
that thought, can be completely changed. 



LIFE 115 

No greater fallacy has ever been taught. A 
people can only advance in future by the 
slow and gradual methods which are seen 
in the long and devious course of the past 
to have there been effectual. The light of 
the past is the only guide for the future. 

In our own beloved country, government 
proceeds from the majority. It is sup- 
ported by public opinion, and public 
opinion proceeding from an imperfect mass, 
being modified to some extent by the 
thought of the evil as well as of the good, 
necessarily represents the people who give 
it expression. If we are to support the 
government of the majority, if wc believe 
in a republican form of government, we 
are obliged to say that this imperfect rule 
is not only right but that for the time it is 
the best possible rule. In a government of 
the majority the individual citizen is the 
unit and each unit has as much right to 
have his opinion expressed in law as any 
other, for it would be manifestly unjust for 
a few, even though wiser than the majority, 



n6 LIFE 

to have their opinions placed in the manda- 
tory law to the exclusion of the wishes of 
a majority. Government and a code of 
laws, in a republic, are expressions of the 
will of the people and are always represen- 
tative of the sum total of the character of 
the people instituting them. Government 
in a republic it is thus seen must necessarily 
consist of a continued series of compro- 
mises between opposing shades of thought 
among the people, if all are represented. 
The only way that law and government can 
be permanently bettered and advanced is 
by slowly and laboriously changing the 
thoughts and opinions cf the masses of the 
people. And this cannot be done by a mere 
Act of Congress. 

Sir William Blackstone, lays down this 
proposition: 'VV11 valid law" — and hence 
all rightful public action — " is based upon 
that instinctive apprehension of justice 
which finds universal lodgment in the heart 
of man." I believe this to be absolutely 
true. \ Not because Blackstone says it but 



LIFE 117 

for the reason that it appears to me a self- 
evident truth. If this be true, &nd I think 
it impossible for any man successfully to 
controvert it, it 'should be clear and plain 
that the only way in which valid law can 
be changed for the better is by the slow 
process of gradually informing and en- 
lightening the public mind and heart. No 
doubt these statements of fact will be ex- 
ceedingly disagreeable to those ingenuous 
souls who earnestly desire the speedy ad- 
vent of a better day. And yet if the state- 
ments here made are true, if in the way 
stated it is plain that man can only advance, 
it is the duty of all to cheerfully acquiesce, 
to lay aside the idea of immediately bring- 
ing on the millennium by engrafting upon 
the statute books our own peculiar notions, 
and join in the effort to gradually change 
the current of thought prevalent among 
men. 

Of course this is a mighty undertaking. 
In this great work no man can hope to 
have other than a very small place, and in 



n8 LIFE 

the final result it is probable that no man's 
work, that of no single individual., can be 
recognized. 

Give the Chinese nation a Declaration of 
Independence and a United States Consti- 
tution and nothing with them would be 
changed. The masses of that people could 
not comprehend these instruments or their 
usefulness. For them they could have no 
usefulness. Likewise, for us the proclama- 
tion of a perfect law would be out of place, 
and for the same reason. As with the 
Chinese, law can do us no permanent good 
unless supported by an almost unanimous 
public opinion. 

Even in monarchical countries public 
opinion is the power behind the throne 
greater than the throne itself. In Germany 
we have recently seen that the Emperor 
has been unable to carry out his will in the 
matter of socialistic repression. Public 
opinion would not justify this almost abso- 
lute monarch in the measures proposed; 
and this was sufficient veto. Even in 



LIFE 119 

Russia, half civilized as it is, it is only be- 
cause the Czar is regarded as " The Little 
Father " and next in authority and good- 
ness to the Great Father or God Himself 
that he is enabled to reign at all. But for 
this general public opinion pervading the 
Russian nation even the power of the Czar 
would vanish. 

In our own country public opinion is 
not only the power behind the throne but 
it constitutes the very throne itself. Let 
us suppose a time of public alarm. A great 
fire in a city. There is gathered a crowd 
consisting of all classes and conditions, 
fairly representing the general public. In 
this crowd so constituted, let one cry out: 
"This man has stolen my pocket-book! 
Stop thief!" Immediately there is aroused 
an universal sentiment favorable to the man 
who has been robbed and in opposition to 
the thief. If the thief has in this crowd no 
confederates not a single hand will be 
raised to save him. Every man will join in 
assisting in his arrest, and even non-com- 



120 LIFE 

batants will point out with the greatest 
eagerness the course the escaping mis- 
creant has taken. The thief himself, if ap- 
prehended, will not deny the justice of his 
arrest. His only defense will be denial. He 
will say : " If I am guilty it is right that I 
should be punished." Regarding theft 
public opinion is unanimous, and for this 
reason theft can never endanger the public 
welfare or corrupt the morals of the people. 
Suppose, on the other hand, that in the 
same crowd just described a policeman en- 
deavors to arrest a man whom he declares 
is an illegal seller of liquors and at once 
a very different state of affairs will present 
itself. The crowd w T ill hoot and jeer the 
policeman and endeavor to secure the 
escape of the offender. No hand will be 
raised to assist the officer of the law and he 
will pursue his task under the greatest diffi- 
culties. Public opinion does not support 
the officer in the performance of duty. The 
reason is thus clear to the honest observer 
why the enforcement of a prohibitory 



LIFE 121 

liquor law is almost impossible. In country 
districts, where public sentiment univers- 
ally favors, the law can be enforced. In- 
deed there will probably arise no occasion 
for its enforcement. But in cities where 
this public opinion is lacking prohibitory 
liquor laws have never been enforced and 
can never be productive of good until a vast 
change has taken place in the minds not 
only of the moral few who need no law but 
of that larger and indifferent class who com- 
pose the majority. Indeed it is probable that 
the attempt to enforce law not supported by 
an almost unanimous public opinion is pro- 
ductive of the most serious and detrimental 
consequences. Xo doubt church going is 
beneficial and the habit of value, but sup- 
pose a law passed enforcing church attend- 
ance. Is it not plain that such a law would 
have an evil effect? That not only would 
it be a dead letter but that the final result 
would be a lessening of church attendance? 
Who would go to church if the law de- 
clared he must? A feeling cf antagonism 



122 LIFE 

would be aroused, not only against the law 
but the feeling of antagonism would shortly 
be made to include the churches, and even 
religion itself would be endangered. 

From what has been said I think we may 
deduce this fundamental truth: ([Laws in- 
tended mainly to promote moral reform 
must never precede public opinion// True 
law is first formed in the heart of man. Its 
engraftment upon the statutes is simply 
and only the record of a pre-existing fact. 
Misapprehension of this truth has caused 
in the past and will undoubtedly in the 
future cause vast and lamentable disap- 
pointment. 

Previous to that tremendous upheaval, 
the French Revolution, the minds of men 
throughout the civilized world had been 
largely influenced by the writings of Rous- 
seau and the French philosophers. They 
taught the brotherhood of man and coun- 
seled the practice of all the virtues. Im- 
pressionable natures were deeply moved. 
The opinion was prevalent that the world 



LIFE 123 

was upon the eve of vast changes for the 
better. The oppression of the ancient 
regime had aroused a deep and powerful 
sympathy with the French people. When 
the States General was summoned great 
hopes were entertained from the action of 
that body. Indeed it did much to support 
this view. During the long time that the 
first convocation was in session, containing 
as it did many of the wisest and best, it 
gave utterance only to the most exalted 
sentiments, bringing to the support of the 
cause of the common people in France the 
earnest advocacy of many in England and 
America. The poet Wordsworth and the 
statesman Burke, among others, were 
moved to declare that a new era had 
dawned upon the world; that humanity was 
now to take the long-hoped-for forward 
step. It seemed indeed to them that a 
golden age was near at hand, and expecta- 
tions were raised which the future rudely 
dispelled. Afterward the worst passions 
of men were aroused and in the Reign of 



124. LIFE 

Terror the French nation was plunged into 
a frightful abyss, an almost literal hell. 
Seeing this, very many throughout the 
world who had advocated the cause of the 
people lost all hope. Wordsworth, in par- 
ticular, seemed to lose all faith in man and 
in his ability rightly to govern -himself. 
Burke, from being an advocate of the rights 
of man, became the most ardent and un- 
flinching supporter of monarchical power. 
Evidently it had been supposed that a mere 
temporary change of mind had altered the 
character of the French people. 

I have thus endeavored to state what ap- 
pears to me a great fact, to wit:<jVIoral 
progress pursued as a direct end can only 
be secured in a general and public way by 
the spread of education and enlightenment/) 
But while I consider this to be absolutely 
true, it can also be established without ques- 
tion that economic reform rests upon an 
entirely different basis. This fact, which I 
consider of supreme importance in any in- 
quiry made regarding the advance of the 



LIFE 125 

race, has been singularly obscured in the 
minds of many well-meaning and eminent 
men. Men, too, who are, it would appear, 
sincerely desirous of the welfare of their 
kind. It is held by this class, almost with- 
out exception, that it will be impossible to 
secure betterment in man's social condition 
without a pre-existent change in his mind. 
In short the opinion is unhesitatingly ad- 
vanced that men must be made morally 
better before they are able to advance. 
In the minds of men so influenced 
all effort is bent in the direction of moral 
advance with the idea that this is absolutely 
essential to a change in material surround- 
ings, when, as a matter of fact, this process 
should be reversed, a change in surround- 
ings being the first necessary step. The 
misapprehension of fact in this matter is of 
controlling importance, leading as it does 
away from the truth. And yet the very 
men who are so insistent upon moral teach- 
ing as the first essential would scarcely un- 
dertake to lecture to a public body placed 



126 LIFE 

in an uncomfortable or dangerous position. 
Brought down to a matter of actual prac- 
tice they would know very well that it 
would be impossible for them to influence 
an audience in the right direction unless 
material conditions were favorable. If sur- 
roundings are dangerous and disquieting 
the effort to improve the minds of men, it 
is plain, must be given up. At the time of 
the French Revolution a mental change 
had been effected in the minds of the peo- 
ple, but their physical surroundings and 
economic conditions remained the same as 
before; hence the Reign of Terror and the 
relapse into the arbitrary government of 
Napoleon. It will be remembered that that 
great teacher of morals, the Galilean Car- 
penter, first fed the multitude and when 
they were comfortably filled he taught 
them. So it must be clearly apparent to all 
unprejudiced observers that it is impossible 
to raise a nation morally unless its econo- 
mic surroundings are first improved. And 
this truth has a clear, fundamental, physio- 



LIFE i2 7 

logical basis. Man is unquestionably, phy- 
sically at least, the product of two factors, 
heredity and environment. These two, 
when fully examined, are found entirely 
sufficient to account for every fiber of his 
body and most of the thoughts of his brain. 
And while the two agencies seem to be 
clearly separate in their influence upon his 
life and character, yet if we examine more 
narrowly we shall see that what is called 
heredity is simply and only the result of 
previous environment. Esquimo heredity 
brings down from former generations the 
results of former Esquimo environment. 
Surroundings have made them just what 
they are. In the case of the Esquimo we 
are able to see that this is true only because 
we view him as entirely apart from our- 
selves. Self-interest and its attendant preju- 
dices do not interfere with that clearness of 
vision which usually attends our thought of 
others. But this is as surely true of our- 
selves, only with us amid the multiplicity of 
influences surrounding civilized men we 



128 LIFE 

are sometimes unable to trace effects to 
their original causes. And yet every habit 
of man and every lineament of his face may 
be traced by care and study to pre-existent 
conditions affecting himself or his ances- 
tors. Heredity is only the result of a former 
environment. Conditions make men, and, 
in the long run, control them completely. 
Take the best and most genial family you 
know, deprive them of property, take from 
them the means of living in what they will 
regard as a decent manner, thrust them 
into a dirty tenement in the slums of a 
great city, surround them with vile men 
ana viler women, and sooner or later, if the 
family can see no hope of better conditions, 
they will sink to the plane of the miserables 
by whom they are surrounded. If the first 
generation by some miracle be preserved 
we know that the second must follow the 
course forced upon it by its surroundings. 
Nobody having an ounce of wit or sense 
would think for a moment of bringing up 
a child in the ways of propriety who still 



LIFE j 2 (j 

remained a resident of the slums. The first 
thing to do would be to take it away! After- 
ward talk of morals and behavior might be 
in order, but not there. And men are but 
children of a larger growth, and moved 
by substantially the same influences. To 
improve men conditions with them must 
first be changed by stronger forces than 
they themselves can command. Wiser men 
than they are must emancipate them. Slaves 
have never freed themselves, and never will. 
Men advance by following a leader, and the 
leader must be wiser and abler than the led. 
" If the blind lead the blind both shall fall 
together in the ditch." 

Man is a creature of conditions. His sur- 
roundings in the long run make him what 
he is. Once upon a time, long, long ago, 
the Ethiopians, or Abyssinians, were in- 
structed in the principles of the Christian 
religion. Once they were Christians. Now, 
their so-called religion is little better, if any, 
than the fetichism of the savages by whom 
they are surrounded. Xot long ago Great 



130 LIFE 

Britain sent its convicts to Australia. 
Rather unpromising stock upon which to 
build, and yet the children of these thieves 
and murderers surrounded by free air and 
Ifree land have become as honest, as law- 
abiding and as promising a people as any 
upon whom falls the light of day. 

The truth is, man is an animal organized 
upon a material plane. He possesses a 
mind, a soul, it is true, but a toothache or a 
sliver under the nail so small that it cannot 
be seen across the table will usually destroy 
all his vaunted superiority to the brute. 

Clearly by the law of nature the body is 
first in point of time. Long years are spent 
in preparing a body before the mind in full- 
orbed splendor is permitted to inhabit its 
dwelling place. At first the infant repre- 
sents simple animal life; it possesses no in- 
tellectuality; not until the body has come 
to full maturity — and has been specially 
prepared and fitted for the use of the con- 
trolling principle — is man said to come to 
years of discretion. Thus, according to the 



LIFE 131 

plan and purpose of the Creator conditions 
and surroundings are first made propitious 
before man, in his best estate, can be said 
to exist. A secure dwelling place is first 
prepared; and the basis is a physical one. 
Conditions are first made favorable and the 
material side of life has first consideration. 
Those who tell us that the race must first 
become better mentally and morally before 
physical progress can be made are thus op- 
posing the plainly written laws of nature. 
For, evidently, in a large and general way, 
as shown by the history of the past, the race 
has made progress mentally only after ab- 
solutely necessary physical conditions have 
been met. Man is the microcosm of the 
universe, an epitome of all that has gone 
before, a representation in miniature of the 
laws and purposes of the Creator, and in 
man we see the working out of a plan and 
purpose we are certainly wise in attempting 
to follow; and the way is plain, is indeed 
patent to all who will observe. 

It is a self-evident proposition that prog- 



ij2 LIFE 

ress must proceed in consonance with the 
laws controlling the two great factors in all 
human action; human and external nature. 
Whatever is in opposition to these will 
come to naught. True progress proceeds 
in accordance with law. And we must re- 
member that the factors in all progress — 
man and nature — are, and must remain, 
through all ages the same. Nor can we 
forget that whatever has been found in the 
past to conflict with these has finally come 
to naught. fNature and human nature re- 
main. The laws by which both are gov- 
erned have never changed nor is it likely 
that in this world at least they ever will) If 
a long succession of events has in past ages 
shown that a certain course is in opposition 
to these laws it is not reasonable to suppose 
that a new trial will disclose different re- 
sults. And yet we find men constantly hop- 
ing that a new effect may follow old causes 
if only new names be given them. To un- 
derstand men and properly to regard them, 
we must take them as thev are, not as we 



LIFE 133 

might wish them to be. (^ The world in 
which we live is governed by certain laws 
called natural, which so far as we are in- 
formed have never varied or changed in the 
smallest particular^ The factors then are 
the world as it exists and man as he is. The 
future will furnish no others. Allow me 
then to set forth what seem to me to be 
fundamental facts : 

First, then, we may say: Man is an ani- 
mal, absolutely controlled by three animal 
instincts. These dominate his life. It is 
true that these animal instincts are some- 
what controlled by his intellectual nature, 
and yet the intellect at last depends for its 
force and direction upon the animal. CJThe 
first law that controls man is the instinct of 
self-preservation. " All that a man hath 
will he give for his life/ ') This instinct is 
absolute and imperative. No man in his 
right mind, I think, has ever escaped or 
ever will escape its power. The same law, 
for it is a natural law, controls all animals. 
Threaten your cat or your dog and the 



13/ LIFE 

animal will do precisely as you would under 
the same circumstances. 

(The second animal instinct controlling 
man is the desire to better his condition.^ 
All men are subject to this law. Escape 
from it is absolutely impossible. One may 
fancy that future conditions with him may 
be bettered by the sacrifice of even his life, 
but by the sacrifice of his life under these 
circumstances he is endeavoring to better 
his condition. The philanthropist may 
spend his years in endeavoring to benefit 
his kind but he does this from a desire to 
better his own condition. He has a tender 
and sympathetic heart and mind, and, if he 
fail to do what he believes himself called 
upon to do, he would suffer. He is a phil- 
anthropist because suffering would come to 
him if he were not. His condition then 
would be worse. He seeks to avoid the 
calamity of a worse condition by doing 
what he considers to be his duty. And this 
law or instinct is an animal one controlling 
all animals from the highest to the lowest. 



LIFE fj S 

Life being- first secured the next desire is 
betterment of condition. The beast of prey 
and the beast of burden, the wild animal 
in his lair and the ox in his stall all are im- 
pelled by this fundamental animal instinct. 
This, too, is the motive power behind that 
splendid advance man has made from sav- 
agery, or perhaps from still lower condi- 
tions, up to the present plane of civilized 
life. The desire to better his condition 
animates the scholar, impels the artist and 
actuates the merchant. The desire to im- 
prove one's condition is aligned with hope, 
that vital impulse of the soul of man. No 
matter how much a man may possess, his 
constant wish is for more. The scholar is 
never satisfied with his attainments or the 
rich man with his wealth. Improvement, 
increase,-is the demand of the mind of man, 
indeed, it is a vital part of the man himself. 
He must constantly gain, in some direction, 
or misery is the result. Increase need not 
be great; slight, if constant, advance will 
satisfv his nature. But this demand for an 



ij6 LIFE 

advance in some quarter is a desire im- 
planted in the soul of man by his Creator. 
When all hope of future gain, of some sort, 
is at an end life has lost its charm and the 
man is ready to die. Upon this funda- 
mental instinct all progress depends. 
Knowledge is capable of bringing it into 
harmony with intellectual considerations. 
Then true advance is made. The instinct 
cannot be destroyed. 

The third natural law or animal instinct 
controlling man is (the desire to propagate 
his kind. Under this head come love, mar- 
riage, love of children, the home and the 
highest and holiest aspirations.) But this 
is an animal instinct and is equally applica- 
ble to every form of animal life. Animals 
love their young and will sacrifice their 
lives for them. Man can do no more. 

Man's conduct in life; his mode and 
manner of life, all his thoughts and deeds 
are subject to these three cQmmon animal 
instincts. It is impossible, I think, for one 
to perform any act in the whole course of 



LIFE T 37 

his life that does not come under one of 
these three heads. He is absolutely bound 
by these laws. No man in his right mind 
has ever escaped them and no man can 
escape them. They are the laws of nature 
and therefore the laws of God. Looking 
backward over the pages of history we see 
that man. if free to chose, has been con- 
trolled in all his devious way by them. It 
follows as a matter of course that he will 
be thus controlled in the future. Whatever 
plan may be conceived by man for the bet- 
terment of his kind, it is clear and ought to 
be self-evident to all, that it must be con- 
sistent with these laws. Nothing can suc- 
ceed not in accordance with them. These 
are the demands of nature upon him which 
he cannot disobey if he would. 

QsFo doubt it will be exceedingly distaste- 
ful to many to consider themselves as com- 
pletely controlled by these animal desires, 
and yet it is the simple truth to say that in 
the long run man in the mass has always 
been thus controlled.^ Denial or disgust 



138 LIFE 

will not change the fact. I simply state a 
law of nature patent to all. Here and there 
in individual instances the contrary may 
seem to be true but these isolated instances, 
easily explainable upon natural grounds, 
are only the exceptions which prove the 
general rule. Mere theories cannot be 
made always to live by the denial of well- 
known facts. 

These three controlling desires pertain 
to the natural world upon its material or 
physical plane. If they control the conduct 
of man — and painstaking and honest in- 
quiry will abundantly prove that they do — 
it must then be clearly and plainly apparent 
how and why material conditions surround- 
ing men are so supremely important. Man 
simply obeys the laws of his being, stat- 
ural law T — or the law of God — cannot be 
broken; never was broken. It may for a 
time be evaded or ignored, but it cannot be 
destroyed} Natural law remains to the end, 
continuing to assert and re-assert itself, de- 
stroying finally all who refuse to recognize 



LIFE 139 

it. White men forced to live the life of the 
Esquimo become Esquimaux, or die. 
Forced to live in Africa among the negroes 
they adopt the manners and customs of the 
people about them, and their children will 
be as untamable as the savages by whom 
they are surrounded. The empire of climate 
is said to be the most powerful empire upon 
the face of the globe, and this is true be- 
cause climate is the chief agent in enforcing 
conditions upon men, and conditions make 
men, in the long run controlling them ab- 
solutely. Take the most demure and care- 
ful mannered man in your community; 
force him to dress in a disreputable manner, 
like a tramp, force him to continue this and 
he will end by being a tramp. Surround 
him with thugs and bummers, let him have 
no other companions, and if he have a 
strong burly frame and is provided with 
animal courage he will be a thug; if he 
lacks these qualifications he will be a bum- 
mer. If forced to live the life I have only 
hinted at he will shortly graduate as an 



ij.o LIFE 

all-around " tough " and enemy of society. 
If your particular mild-mannered man have 
within him the survival of a former virtuous 
ancestry he may escape absolute moral de- 
filement, but if he have children thus sur- 
rounded they cannot escape. 

But you will tell me that men are not 
forced to live as I have described and I say 
to you in reply: You are mistaken; they 
are. Go to the nearest lounging place of 
disreputable men; pick out a dozen and 
carefully, laboriously and honestly trace 
their sorrowful histories, ~nd you will finally 
be convinced that in eleven cases of the 
twelve those men could scarcely have been 
other than they are. Nothing happens with- 
out a cause and for every effect there is an 
all-sufficient cause. These men are the 
product of causes. Bad parentage, and bad 
surroundings will make bad men and they 
are mad,e what they are by the laws of 
nature. Nothing happens. All is subject 
to law — natural law. Patient, careful in- 
ductive investigation will trace out these 



LIFE i+i 

laws. It is now too late in the day for in- 
telligent men to refuse the evidence of their 
senses. Ages ago this might have been, 
and was, possible. Men then imbibed an 
opinion with mother's milk and no matter 
how erroneous stoutly held to it through 
life. Now, men are beginning to see that 
figs will not grow on thistles or grapes on 
thorns even though ever so much talk be 
indulged in. Facts are stubborn things 
which have a way of finally making them- 
selves respected. Education and the prog- 
ress of enlightenment count for something 
as the years go by and it is now established 
in the minds of unprejudiced men that 
man's progress in the world depends upon the 
general spread of education and enlighten- 
ment, and these, in turn, are dependent upon 
previously secured improved physical and 
material surroundings. 

We read that desiring to raise up unto 
Himself a peculiar people the Lord brought 
the children of Israel up out of the land of 
Egypt and the house of bondage and gave 



i+2 LIFE 

them a promised land flowing with milk 
and honey. That is, He first provided 
favorable material surroundings. And these 
were " promised " because they were 
known to be absolutely essential to the 
progress of man. Even Moses, that great 
leader of man, was unequal to the task of 
educating and enlightening a people not in 
possession of essential material and physical 
surroundings. 

The first requisite to ethical citizenship is 
the freedom of the citizen; and the second, 
alike imperative, is security in the indi- 
vidual possession of property. Given these 
two, progress becomes possible. And this 
is clearly seen in our own history. Progress 
in America has been greater and more 
rapid than elsewhere because here freedom 
and security in the possession of property 
have been more generally secured than has 
ever before been the case in the history of 
the world. The evils arising from an im- 
perfect freedom are to be cured only by 
greater freedom and larger opportunity. 



LIFE 1+3 

' Ye are to know the truth and the truth 
shall make you free." Freedom is the end 
and aim of life. 

The future is to be known by the past. 
If it can be shown that progress in the r^st 
has proceeded upon the lines here laid 
down it will be universally admitted that 
future advance must follow the same 
course. Let us then, very briefly, glance at 
the past, and in doing this it will be impos- 
sible here to do more than merely call to 
mind historical events well known to all. 

Modern civilization is held to date its be- 
ginning from the era separating modern 
from medieval days. This seems not to be 
very accurately fixed in the minds of his- 
torians. The Renaissance or revival of 
learning is generally held to date from the 
close of the fifteenth century. The Protes- 
tant reformation from the earlier part of the 
sixteenth. With most one or the other of 
these is held to mark the turning point; the 
idea usually inculcated being that modern 
civilization takes its rise mainlv because of 



iU LIFE 

an intellectual impetus rising out of these 
events. In short that modern advance has 
a mental beginning. 

Careful investigation will, on the con- 
trary, show that here, as everywhere else in 
the history of the world, progress made and 
mental advance secured were entirely de- 
pendent upon previously gained improved 
physical and material surroundings. Look- 
ing back to the beginning of modem civili- 
zation in Europe we can see that it was 
founded upon commerce and the gradual 
extension of trade which began as mere 
piracy. At first this " commerce " was 
forced by dint of " good right arms." It 
began upon a very low material plane. 
There was no " moral uplift " in the voy- 
ages of the " Sea Beggars " who ravaged 
the coasts of northern Europe. Gradually 
and in process of time trade upon substan- 
tially the present basis of mutually benefi- 
cial exchange was established. Manners 
were softened and knowledge increased by 
contact of man with man, and contact came 



LIFE 145 

in obedience to the desire of men quite low 
in the mental scale to better their material 
conditions. As early as the eleventh cen- 
tury we see the rise of what became in the 
fourteenth century a vast commercial 
power. Hamburg, Cologne, Bremen, Dan- 
zig, Lubeck, Brunswick, and many other 
cities, joined themselves together to protect 
their growing commerce under the name of 
the Hanseatic League. By the fourteenth 
century this league embraced every city of 
importance between Holland and Livonia, 
some eighty-five in all. These cities be- 
came known as " Free Cities.'' Here the 
first trade unions or guilds were formed and 
for the first time the ordinary citizen was 
enabled to accumulate property and be 
secure in its possession. The cities em- 
ployed in building ships and manufacturing 
goods for sale abroad gradually increased 
in wealth and power; wealth was fairly dis- 
tributed and improved economic conditions 
were secured. Afterward, universities were 
founded and art and the sciences began to 



r*6 LIFE 

be studied. The foundation of improved 
material surroundings had first been sup- 
plied. Long years after this came the 
Renaissance and the Reformation. Instead 
of the Renaissance giving rise to improved 
economic conditions the contrary was the 
case — improved conditions, trade relations, 
commerce and the gradual accumulation of 
wealth brought about the revival of learn- 
ing. Florence, held as the center of influ- 
ence from whence spread learning and a 
love of art, had long been a rich and popu- 
lous commercial center renowned for its 
manufactures and foreign trade. The Re- 
naissance took its rise in a wealthy, popu- 
lous community where economic condi- 
tions were most favorable to the industrious 
citizen. As a result of commercial develop- 
ment and economic progress throughout 
Europe serfs in commercial cities had grad- 
ually thrown off their burdens, disabilities 
had been removed, happiness and oppor- 
tunity increased and the ordinary man was 



LIFE H7 

made secure in the possession of property 
long years before Luther's day. 

Under improved economic conditions 
the average man in the commercial centers 
had become measurably free and was thus 
enabled to satisfy that innate longing for 
improvement implanted in the very con- 
stitution of man. Hope of improvement, 
that call of God to man: " Son, come up 
higher/' he was enabled to answer. The 
natural desire of his material frame was 
met. Then, mental and moral advance be- 
came possible. The progress of the race 
has been always secured in this manner — 
and in no other. 

A good many years ago Thomas Carlyle, 
one of the most acute and ablest thinkers 
of modern times, declared that the Ameri- 
cans were making rapid progress only be- 
cause a comparatively small population was 
possessed of a fine climate and a large 
quantity of valuable land. That is, economic 
conditions were favorable. The rest, his 



TfS LIFE 

knowledge of the world's history showed 
him would inevitably follow. 
^Progress depends absolutely upon man's 
possession of a favorable material environ- 
ment. Then the demands of his physical 
nature can be met\ And these demands are 
continually advancing. More and more is 
constantly required to fill the need of pro- 
gressive man. Xo matter how much he 
may have gained in the past, more will be 
required in the future. The demands of 
nature must be met; and will be met. 

Much has been written of the pleasures 
of hope. Hope fills the soul of man and 
buoys him up. Without hope he ceases to 
exist as a reasonable and sensible being. 
But what is the subject of hope? Ask your- 
self that and the answer can only be : better- 
ment of condition; hope of improvement; 
advance; progress! We have already noted 
that this is the second fundamental instinct 
underlying all animated nature, controlling 
the movements of bird, beast and man. It 
is also seen as the chief — if not the only — 



LIFE 149 

mental stimulus inhabiting- the soul. It is 
a law of God. Think you to stifle or obliter- 
ate this demand of man's nature by your 
puny book-made laws or your impious 
regulations of trade and exchange? I tell 
you nay! 

Keeping in mind this fundamental in- 
stinct implanted in man's body and animat- 
ing his soul, demanding constant, unceas- 
ing, never-ending betterment of condition 
— which it is seen must be preceded and 
fostered by improved material and physical 
surroundings; seeing too that the standard 
of comfort and possession is constantly ris- 
ing with man's advance, the inference, the 
irresistible conclusion is this: Industrial 
freedom is the question of questions: The 
riddle of the Sphinx of Time which our 
society will answer or die! 




SEP 28 1899 



